My First Born - Stavya

After 39 week and 2 days of training as free style kick boxer.  

Standing 20 ½ inches and weighing in at 9.9 pounds.  

Holding his kingdom of dreams in close fists and hoping to win over the world by knock out is my son Stavya, born 5th December 2011 to first time parents Swati and Atit.

+1 is our contribution to the global population.

I killed Steve and Ritchie

This is my confession. I am responsible for the death of two legends – Jobs and Ritchie.


[I acknowledge works of the photographers. I don’t have enough information to accredit them]

Well, actually I only killed Jobs, the aftermath of my actions that killed Jobs, killed Ritchie. Emotions were running high and with the fear of public retribution I deferred my decision of an immediate confession.

As I retrace the sequence of events around the 5th of October 2011, I will uncover my crime and tell you just how I killed Jobs and how it led to Ritchie.

Flash back: In 2009 I was issued my service laptop, a Dell Latitude 5500 running Windows XP. It is common knowledge; all Microsoft products have a standard mode of operation that includes the occasional blue screen of death and system freeze. I had a couple since 2009. 

Monday, 3rd of October: My work laptop was acting a little strange. In my 8 hours at work, the laptop had 2 blue screens of death and 4 system freezes. I had to hard reset it every time.

Tuesday, 4th of October: Things got worse. In 8 hours at work, I had 4 screens of death plus 2 or 3 hard reboots. Performance slowed down to a sluggish pace – it felt like a typical Microsoft day. In the evenings after work I usually switch to my better performing 1st Generation MacBook. Worried of data loss, I switched on my work laptop to backup. It took me 2 hard resets to get the work done. Frustration took over and I left it at 50% - extracted personal data and left the work behind.

Wednesday, 5th of October: The fretful day of the murder. After only 2 hours at work and a few hard resets, my system crashed. It was infected and the infection started erasing software from my machine. It wiped out Skype, SVN and Eclipse. After some swearing, I went to Technical Operations and asked them to help restore and reinstall. This is when it happened. They asked me if I wanted XP or the 7? I thought for a minute and at last changed my mind to install Windows 7. I was a little excited and looking forward to Windows 7. It was very wrong for an Apple fan boy to be excited about a Microsoft product. 

It’s a sin.

I committed this sin. I was pleased of having Windows 7 and all charge up to explore it. I installed Firefox, loaded Google news and there it was - Steve Job passes away. I didn’t believe it. I went to apple.com and saw the picture. It was true.

Steve Jobs was indeed unwell, but my excitement for Microsoft pushed him to the edge. I caused him a heart burn and pushed him to his death.

I ask for forgiveness…

A few days later, we lost Ritchie. My heart sank because I indirectly killed him.

Ritchie built C and I believe he must have felt accomplished through all of Steve’s success. He thought his life was worthy after he saw his language being the base for all the technological waves Steve created. On 5th of October he must have turned to the news and learnt about Steve. This made him nauseous. The imitator Bill gave the world zilch and the one other person who made him feel alive was gone. What was there to live for now? He gave up on living and move to another level on the 12th.

My actions killed him.

I cannot ask for forgiveness and I can’t be forgiven.

Wise Cracks

How would you retort to your wife’s criticism of spending an enormous amount of time in the toilet?

“I came out not because I had finished but because the laptop ran out of batteries”

You don’t need to be Sherlock to deduce the source of this wise-ass crack.

These are a couple of sagacious cracks I have taken seriously enough to remember.

There have been a couple of regional wars at home between my wife, who comes from Noida, a city close to the capital and me, preferring to see myself as being from Mumbai. Amidst one such war ending with serious disability, I commented “The reason why we have the parliament in Delhi and the Sensex in Mumbai is because Delhi is full of stupid fools and Mumbai is full of wise guys”. The intention to assuage ended in heavy bags from women’s fashion stores and fine dining receipts. Every time that I think of it now, I almost believe it, I guess it was money well spent.

I credit my wife for igniting the Socrates. This one is also her provocation.

“Success is always on the rooftop of a 1000 storied high rise and not all have the privilege to ride the elevator”. The success being referred to here is for complementing her on every try outs and still being able to check out of the store with empty hands. This thought occurred when she was in changing and I was out scheming. It doesn’t matter who had the success. The fact of the wisdom remains that there are only a few who are blessed with easy wins, for the majority it is simply hard labor and perspiration.

The one earnest wise crack I remember was from a mentor in my early days as a trainee. “A person is as good as the quality of his work on his last day on the job”. I don’t believe he obeyed it at the time but I find myself wishing I hadn’t heard and remembered it. I have seen so many people live days after resignation as retired veterans, sitting around telling stories of their glorious victories to the new recruits. The moment I think of indulging in similar revelries, this thought strikes and I find myself working with the same assiduous zeal as any other day.

“Under commit over deliver” … a passing remark by one of my manager. Have you heard Steve Jobs say “…and one more thing”? He always had one more thing to talk about at the end of his presentation. I am in the process of build this, committing reasonable but delivering a little more to build the excitement and confidence.

Quest for Publication

February 19, 2008: Kazumasa kitajima (willoughby860 on flickr)

Kazumasa is (or was – we don’t really keep in touch) a feature editor/writer for a travel culture magazine called “TRANSIT”. Transit apparently claimed to be a widely circulated and read magazine in Japan. At the time, they were working on an issue focusing on China and was scheduled to release on April 25. They wanted permission to use the following Yungang Buddhist Cave image.

The agreement was, I give them permission to use the picture at NO Fee and they give me the credits and mail me a copy of the edition. This was the first contact in what could be a long pipeline of future commercial prospects. I wanted to seize it to launch my clicks. So, I kept my side of the deal and gave him permission to use the picture. I am still in futile wait to see a copy in my mailbox.

He may have given me the credit but he has definitely not mailed me a copy. If any one of you has come across this magazine and in particular this edition, please mail me.

May 14, 2008: Liz Kyonka (operant on flickr)

Liz introduced herself as an animal behavior scientist working with pigeons. She was scheduled to deliver a presentation at an annual conference for the “Association for Behavior Analysis” about pigeons and she requested to use the following image of Pigeon Eggs

The agreement here was, she promised to use it for non-commercial purposes, which she upheld and would credit me. I did ask her to credit the picture to Atit Shah and requested her to mail me a copy of the presentation. She didn’t mail me a copy either.

I just wanted evidence of people using my pictures and attributing the creative works to me.

March 16, 2009: Christa I. De La Cruz (xta_dlc on flickr)

A representative from Manila Skies (Manila Skies is a monthly in-flight magazine for Spirit of Manila Airlines) wrote to me seeking permission to print the following image in their April issue that had an article on the Asian and Middle Eastern Countries.

This was the time when I felt I should say no to freebies and should talk commercials. I asked for 100 USD (it seemed fair considering the possible size of the picture they would use and the number of copies they would print). I did emphasize on negotiating but then I never heard back from her. I guess her layout team could not fit the picture.

March 11, 2010: Amanda Brooks (Amanda Brooks on flickr)

A representative of the Schmap New York Guide wanted to use the following image of the Statue of Liberty

The ignoring response from Manila Skies made me reconsider my decision of freebies. I switched back to the royalty free stance. Amanda promised to give me the credits.  She upheld the agreement and this time I got a mail back with a link to the picture. They reformatted their site a while back and I was given an updated link to my picture.

This link does have my picture and my name but to my dismay, it also has a collection of tens of thousands of pictures of the lady. I didn’t find this very encouraging and creditable. I wouldn’t call myself published yet.

January 14, 2011: CitiusTech (my current employer) Calendar

At the beginning of every year, CitiusTech would distribute calendars to its employees. A few people had an idea of creating a photography club within the organization and launching the club by distributing a calendar with pictures clicked by an elite group of photography enthusiasts. I was one amongst the elite. The group had selected a “Mumbai” as a theme. The theme was purposefully easy and simple. I travelled around Mumbai in local trains, in the heat and on foot to click the following

A few members on the group selected some of these for the calendar. Unfortunately, the HR driving this initiative changed course and was off on a maternity leave. The idea of this calendar and the idea of a photography club was consumed by a black hole.

None of these events has deterred my passion to click. I continue my quest on being published with or without the commercial benefits.

My infamous side note: I am not as good as a million others, but the passion thrives.

A simple phone thought

Thought Trigger:
An anonymous phone call on a sleepy Saturday morning

Thought:
Why do phone companies relay only the telephone number to your cell phones? Why don’t they send both the number and the registered name of the person or organization?
This way if you have not set an alias for that number in your address book or the number is anonymous, the phone will display registered name.

Imagine life if something like this would flash on your screen as it rings:

1. AT&T Customer Service
2. AT&T Late Payment
3. Payphone on 1st street, San Jose, CA
4. Telemarketer - InsuranceCompany
5. Mr John Stevenson

Advantage:

1. Makes life easier for late sleepers and sleep catchers
2. Helps call screening. There may be 1 in 100 anonymous calls that you would want to answer immediately, 10 in 100 later and 89 in 100 never. Don’t confuse this with the telemarketers because you can always use the government mandate of “Do-Not-Disturb” or “Do-Not-Call” feature of your service provider

Disadvantage:

1. I can hardly think of any

What technical difficulty could the implementation of this have that can’t be overcome?

Ode to Ninkasi or Green Earth

Should i call this be an "Ode to Ninkasi" or my mission for a "Green Earth: Bringing more Green!"

I acknowledge the creative effort of:

1. PSDGraphic for providing the free background image 
2. World-Geographics for providing the world map  
3. Kampongboy92 for providing the world flags

Technologist fearing Technology

What would you consider safe – online banking or an ATM encounter?

The answer in unison will be ATM encounters. The question is a no brainer. Online monetary transactions are plagued with hackers and stories of phishing, key loggers, Nigerians and the list just starts at every end.

My mind had instilled the fear of these hazards in my heart. This fear reframed me from logging in into my bank account to enquire my balance let along executing online transactions. As life evolved, I reached a point where I would never get into something that did not have an online solution. I paid all my utility bills online, I made third party transfers online, I made fixed deposits online, and again the list just begins every time I think I have reached the end. People who know me may want to attribute this to my introvertness and the adage that guides my life “I rather interact with technology than natives”.

In my last four years of online dealing, not once have I lost money. I wish I could make the same comment for ATMs. That is right; I lost money in an ATM … TWICE. Here is how.

The first time was almost 4 years back. I tried to withdraw from my ICICI account using an HSBC ATM. I cannot seem to recollect the reason for the failed transaction but at the end of the interaction, all I had was a look of WTF and a slip of a failed transaction. In frustration, I walked out only to realize the next day that the bank had debited INR 3,000.

The second time was almost 4 days back. I tried to withdraw from my HDFC account using an AXIS Bank ATM. This time the transaction failed because the ATM lost satellite connectivity. At the end of the interaction, all I again had was a look of WTF, no slip of failed transaction and an SMS that said thank you for using your debit card to withdraw INR 6,000.

I had to forfeit INR 9,000 to learn the following lessons in using an ATM:

1. ATM interactions can be more irksome
2. Though the Government of India has given the flexibility of using cross-bank ATMs without a transaction fee, people have failed to understand the risk that comes along. I assure you, you would not have lost money had you withdrawn from an ATM of the same bank. Even if you did, disputing and reversing the transaction would be a lot easy and a lot faster.

Side Note: I probably started using an ATM 8 year ago and I see a pattern here. I seem to lose money from an ATM transaction once every 4 years.

Do you have a story where you lost money online or in an ATM? Tell me.

Express Check Out

The Retail Industry and Consumer Behavior have undergone a dramatic transformation over the last decade. A Retail store wants to offer a plethora of products and a consumer wants a one-stop shop. This desire to sell more and attract more is causing large retailers to face a single common challenge of “Queuing”. The checkout counters at these stores habitually have growing queues of impatient and restless consumers.

I frequently find myself spending my valuable weekends getting restless at such a queue and have a dipolar dilemma of either persisting through the suffering or orphaning my shopping cart and storming out of the store.

My observations and my personal shopping experience is the origin of this idea. I term this innovation, the “Express Check-Out (ECO)”; a solution targeted at providing a self-service checkout counters eliminating the need to queue up.         

The ECO cart will be a smart shopping cart aimed at replacing the omnipresent dummy shopping cart. To visualize an ECO cart, think of the traditional shopping cart (with or without wheels) fitted with all of the following nifty gadgets:

• Sensitive weight sensors embedded in the base of the basket
• RFID tag scanners embedded in two opposite or four adjacent walls of the basket
• A “honesty” red/green glowing  LED for visual “honesty” confirmation
• An effortless billing interface capable of

• Reading barcode for billing the purchase items
• Changing the mode to add or delete the scanned items
• A swipe for credit, debit and loyalty card

As a prerequisite, the store will require to maintain a mapping of the item with its corresponding weight, if this information is not already available in the barcode.

The user experience can be workflow-ed as:

1. The customer wishes to purchase an item X
2. The user scans the barcode on the product and then places it in the basket
3. The total weight of all the scanned items should be equal to the actual weight in the basket. This will ensure the customer does not “accidentally” skip step 2
4. The honesty visual confirmation will further reinforce step 2 by glowing appropriately. This will be an indication for both the store managers and the customer.
5. Items with negligible weight will have RFID tag attached to them. The RFID tag will be read by the scanner in the wall of the basket and the item will be added to the shopping list automatically
6. Once done with the shopping, the consumer will have to wheel the cart through a content scanner. The scanner shall scan all the contents of the basket and compare it with the shopping list generated by the billing interface. The content scanner can highlight any ambiguity and the customer can be forwarded for manual inspection
7. If it’s a green from the honesty LED and the content scanner, the customer can simple swipe his card and check out

A customer has the opportunity to do all this with little or no queuing!

ECO creates value to all the stakeholders – for the customers it empowers them with an express checkout facility and for the retail store it will reduces the workload of the checkout counter personnel and provide a unique and a pleasant shopping experience.  

Personal Note:

I had conceived this idea in the month of September of 2008 and had it submitted to Eureka, an entrepreneur program organized by IIT Mumbai. However, it failed to create the intended waves.

Today, in May 2011, I read about “Ahold USA'sStop & Shop and Giant supermarkets” being ready to roll out a version of this idea across their stores in the US.

I am being honest when I say this – I did not steal this idea. I did not produce this entry after reading the press release. This is the second of my ideas to be commercially developed by another creative thinker. I do not wish to claim ownership of this idea but want to convey my creativity and innovativeness that I constantly harp upon in my thought factory. Call me Arrogant, but that is a fact.

If you have had, any such ideas write it up and you can be a guest blogger on my thought factory.

Project Sixth Sense

Watch the video before you commence reading this entry:

As I started watching this video, I had the following notion “what is this kid from some village in Gujarat with a stereotypical accent up to”? As the video progressed, this notion changed and I developed a deep sense of respect for him and his innovation.

He has made a commendable journey from a small town in Gujarat to the prestigious MIT via IIT. This kid is Pranav Mistry from Palanpur Gujarat and I truly appreciate his genius attempt at making this. He calls this project Sixth Sense and you can read a lot more on this on his website.

Some of these gestures can be handy while some of them do have their share of user-embedded challenges. A quick detour, user-embedded challenges are those that have questions around usability. Typically, you would want to ask, “Will a user be able to adopt this new way of using technology”?

The most imperative user embedded challenge is of having to carry a camera around your neck. Not everyone is going to be convinced and comfortable.

As a semi-professional photographer (semi-professional since the day I bought my Nikon D90) and being bashful of pointing my camera to everyday street objects, this will expedient my embarrassment by allowing me to speedily position my fingers and take a click. Like the audience, I too was swept by the idea and gave it an applause. However, what troubles me is will I have the quality as near as my DSLR? Will I be able to give the picture the right perspective? This style will best suit amateur of amateurs and my grandmother who will largely point straight and shoot.

At large airports in non-English speaking foreign worlds it will be convenient to place the boarding card on a screen that will direct you to the boarding gate. But where will a stapler and scissor (if you manage to carry them through the security check), sunglasses and keys take you? I am guessing the bottle of Tabasco sauce and the coffee mug will take you to some eatery around the corner but where am I to get a bottle of Tabasco sauce and a mug of coffee? Who carries a bottle of sauce or a mug when travelling?

When I am running low on reading material, I will often prepare a list after browsing through book rating and review websites. Then, invariably I will forget to carry the list or if I am carrying the list, my local bookstore will not have a copy. This leaves me alone to make the buy decision. The thought of having this concept show me the book reviews as I browse the store is intriguing. This can be easily extended to movies at theatres or to as you walk through a library or store.

I am not being critical of the concept; I really admire Pranav’s vision and his motive. It is a rave of an idea and it deserves all the duly awarded accolades. The concept is there, he was able to put together a prototype and demonstrate it, but it is not really out there. I hear he is running behind schedule but it is just a matter of time. For all you know, the delay could be attributed to the fact that he is working to overcoming some of the embedment challenges.

What is your judgment on Pranav’s Sixth Sense project?

PS: A viewer on You Tube had an interesting comment to make. The movie Sixth Sense and the Gestural concept Sixth Sense were both very creative and were both conceived by Indians – Night Shyamalan and Pranav Mistry. This is something to cheer about.

A Thomas Crown Affair

I can faintly recollect writing on essay topics like “What would you do if you had a million Rupees” or “What would you do if you were the President of your country” from my days as an undergraduate. Now, what I really desire is to write and execute “What would you do if you could steal without being caught?”

You could commit a single crime of robbing a bank and then use the money to legally buying things you desire but then where is the fun in that. What I want more is to live a day in the life of Thomas Crown. Thomas Crown is the fictional billionaire from the movie “Thomas Crown Affair” who has the money but is too bored of buying and opts to venture into stealing for the thrill of it. I really wish to experience the Thomas Crown affair but without the amorous escapades.

If I can prevent myself from being caught in the legal web, I would like to steal two stores. One is the Apple Store and the other is a Book Store.

My 13-inch Macbook and 30GB IPod have not had new friends since the last 4 years. I would like them to be in the company of:

1. iPhone 4 (5 if the rumors are true)
2. iPad 2 with 3G and Wifi
3. 27-inch iMac
4. 13-inch Macbook Air

In India, I would raid the iStore by Reliance Digital because I just despise Reliance’s might. In US, I would raid any of Apple stores in the state of California because of their high tax rate. I would not want to miss the opportunity to pinch the Government along the way.

I often contemplate stealing all the works of a particular author as I browse through the aisles of a bookstore. A succinct list of these authors is:

1. Greg Iles – have been totally consumed when reading three of his books and have great expectations from the remaining
2. Michael Crichton – have watched most of the movies based on his books and since I am stealing I might as well grab and read them all
3. PG Woodhouse – his work employs a little archaic English but they are still a pleasurable read
4. Autobiographies of Lance Armstrong, Andre Agassi,  Steve Jobs and Richard Stallman (if and when one is released)
5. Biographies – Che Guvera (I would leave behind The Motorcycle Diaries), Adolf Hitler, Steve Jobs and Apple  
6. Ann Rand – have not read her yet because of the phobia of not being able to understand her philosophy
7. The Unrelated Adams – Douglas and Scott – like the humor they draw
8. Edward de Bono – like his work but find him painful on the pocket
9. Arthur Hailey – the first 300 pages introduces the characters and the remaining 200 pages actually tell the interesting story. It’s the climax and the unexpected twists that compels one to read
10. Khushwant Singh – should have an Indian on the list

I will love to camouflage my dislike for a few books I own as an act of charity by leaving/donating the following books to the bookstore I steal:

1. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson – have never had the desire to sin by burning a book before
2. Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig – only the book title is fascinating
3. Conversation with God by Neale Donald Walsch – have tried to read it thrice without going beyond page 30
4. I am OK You are OK by Thomas A Harris – did he think if the readers would be OK?
5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro – suddenly the dull dark gloomy day looked brighter

What would you steal if you could walk free from a robbery?

Behind the new logo

I need to thank all my voters, who are probably my frequent readers, for voting on the poll for a new name and tag line for my journal. With your help, I have been able to do away with plagiarism and reinstate the creative honor of my journal.

“Laughter Inc” – “Lifes All Ha Ha He He” has been changed from:

To “A Thought Factory” – “My hearts passion is my minds playground”:

I had to add the “A” to the original name because the winner name has been wasted by another blogger.
As all my ideas have been a stroke of genius, the idea for the logo too was a lightning bolt, which struck me while I sat alone in a hotel room in San Jose. I first scanned through all the symbol fonts available in Word and narrowed down to using the circular arrows and the head of a man.

The circular arrows which represent “O”: symbolizes the process of churning thoughts and ideas
The tall “t” and the “~ (tilde)”: symbolizes the exhaust of a factory. In this case, it is the burning and polishing of my thoughts
The head: symbolizes a man with a head and a heart. It is the storehouse of raw unprocessed ideas that will be processed by the factory
The open mouth: symbolizes the outlet for the creative ideas which make up my journal

The current trend for logos is to have them simple and small, but I like to swim against the current and have made mine large.

The explanation of the tag line is quite implicit: My mind gives my many passions a spin that results in innovative ideas that gives me a higher level of self-contentment.

Again, thank you all for your participation in the poll. Appreciate it.

Retrospection calls for Renovation

“I am not as funny as I thought”… this is my humility telling me after a retrospection of my journal entries. I had initiated this blog in 2004, a time when I was feeling low and had an insolent outlook to the industry that bought me my daily bread. At the time, I thought I would pen laughable entries on the quirkiness of the industry and the world but now when I look back at the entries I made after reviving it, I fail to find a reason to laugh.

Considering the original theme, I had two things right, the name of my blog “Laughter Inc” and the title “Lifes all ha ha he he”. Now these are misnomers and I need to find a more apt name and a title.

Being an advocate of crediting individual artistic creativity it is very wrong of me to use the title that in a way belong to Meera Sayal. Meera actually has a novel and a mini-series “Life Isn’t all Ha Ha Hee Hee”. I altered this to suit my needs. This is not very artistic of me.

This gives me two reasons, misnomer and possible copyright violation, to rename and renovate my journal.

My journal entries do not seem to follow any one theme – they are an assortment of my ideas, my thoughts, and may be my travel. My entries are around topics that my brain can creatively sew.

Here is a list of names that I think, reflect my journal and are more fitting:

1. Thought Factory (my most preferred)
2. Brain Splatters
3. Light Bulb Ideas
4. Creative Scribbles

And a list of titles include:

1. My hearts passion is my brains playground (my most preferred)
2. When the wheel of ideas spin
3. Brains sauteed in Art, Design and IT

I wish to change these on April 1st. Until then I would highly appreciate it if you can either vote for any of my options or make your own suggestions. When you make a suggestion, it will imply that you are also giving me the permissions to use it.

Use the following poll to post your recommendations:

Name(URL) for my blog/journal

Title for my blog/journal

IT in Sewers

This is not another satirical entry on the IT industry. This is literally about “IT in Sewers” or to put it professionally it is about “IT in the Drainage Systems” This design solution was a prize winning entry of the “Pan India Solutions Community’s” monthly challenge sometime in the recent past. Rewriting certain sections of the text was imperative for making it a suitable journal entry.

The main reasons for overflowing drains are:

1. Littering causing accumulation of garbage in drains
2. Authorities unable to pin point the exact point of clog within the drainage system and
3. Authorities unable to send a team to the location to clear the clog on time

Littering is an issue with social responsibility, there is not much IT can do. In my country, finding people with civil sense is as difficult as finding them with common sense.

However, IT can be of immense help with the other points, equipping the authorities with the right information at the right time to keep the drains clean (figuratively speaking) and clear. 

Using sensors, geo-spatial data and mobile technology can help overcome these two inadequacies. As a first step, it will be required to embed sensors in the entire drainage system. These equally and logically spaced sensors should be designed to be able to determine the level and the velocity of water currents. The difference in the level and speed of water between adjacent sensors can give a fair idea on the presence of blockage in the drain.

A Single Line Diagram (SLD as the industry will like to call it) will provide a layout of the drainage system along with the locations of the sensors. Diagrammatically depicted as:

 

There can be two modes of transmitting the sensor readings in real time to a centralized remote Control Center:

1. Consolidating the readings from several sensors first to a single location called “Concentrator” and then transmitting the data from the Concentrator to the Control Center using GSM/CDMA mobile technology. Cheaper technology like Bluetooth or Infrared can help transmitting data between the sensors and the Concentrator
2. Directly transferring data from the sensor the Control Center using mobile technology

Appending the readings from the sensors in the drain to the SLD will enable the managers of the Control Center with the data required to decide on the presence of a block in the drain. Super imposing the SLD on a satellite image of the region will provide the managers with geo-spatial information that will help in assigning priorities and in routing mobile cleaning units, equipped to clear the clog, to the clog site.

Additional feature of this system design can include:

1. Setting auto alerts for clogging which require immediate attention
2. Creating work orders for mobile unit field staff
3. Business rules for setting priorities to work orders created. Some areas will require immediate clearance of clog while others can be delayed for a period of time  
4. Better city planning
5. Introduce regular maintenance works

With multiple mobile servicing units, work assignment and clog clearance can be efficient by using the GPS to track and locate the nearest field staff and assigning work to them.

This design solution can be extended for any piping system such as gas and water. For such utilities, this system can facilitate in:

1. Keeping a tap on leakage due to breakage or burst in pipes
2. Keeping a tap on theft
3. Ensuring timely and efficient supply
4. Better Planning of supply connection
5. Better forecasting of requirement

Does your country have such a solution in place? What are the typical features or pain areas you think there could be?

Along the Highway

This light bulb of an idea stems from a hungry conversation with a colleague during a boring corporate event.

The idea is of a themed fine dining restaurant. The theme is that of the omnipresent “Dhabas”. For my international readers, a Dhaba is a food station along the highway serving a little unhygienic but lip smacking food primarily to truckers and long distance road travelers.

A truck driver and therefore a truck are almost synonymous to a Dhaba. Therefore, this setting involves remodeling a truck such that the loading area will be stacked with a rough looking but polished table with a pair of well-cushioned benches. The driver’s nook will serve as a private bar manned by a private bar tender serving exotic intoxicating concoctions. The bar tender can double as the host, serving food and cleaning the area afterwards. A small graphic to help you imagine:

The next level of imagination required is in the arrangement of these individual private dining trucks. Imagine them arranged either in a circle or in a rectangle enclosing a reasonable area. The enclosed area will serve as the dance floor of a disco. Optionally patrons could even choose to host private parties. The headlights of these trucks can be model to serve as the needed lights for the dance floor. Take a moment to image this.

You may wonder where in all this will the DJ spin his tracks. There will be one truck somewhere in the middle of the arrangement, which will serve as the kitchen and the driver’s nook of this truck will be where the DJ will be.

To this set up add a lot of color, appropriate cutlery, tyres giving it the ambiance, washrooms and you are set to open the doors.

The question now is, Would you like to dine at such a place?

[PS: I am open for discussions if this builds enthusiasm in venture capitalists and other investors.]