Twitter Clone in a Month

Me and Kunal have gone back to our BIT days. We just bet with each other that both of us will come up with a Twitter clone in a month. So, by 25th April we would have two home grown twitter clones*.

Goodluck and Godspeed Kunal. And just in case, I am @Saurabh at twitter.

I plan to use this thread to put updates on my clone. I will call it #Twitter22. I know, not very creative, but still. And I have created a blog for the same twitter22.wordpress.com. Will update it with progress and lessons.

* Hopefully.

Work Better

I have realized that I work better when ...

1. I am facing a wall. I this helps me keep distractions to the minimum.
2. Listening to music I like. This helps in concentrating.
3. The background noise is at bare minimum. For obvious reasons.
4. There's a glassful of water next to me. And a loo within 10 seconds walking distance.
5. My feet are free. Or read as, when I am not wearing any shoes. May be my brain is in my toes?
6. I have a notepad and few pencils to scribble things on. I like taking notes!
7. Lights are dimmed. Not too much of a brightness fan. Blame it on q3?
   

I am trying to build this list. Lets see how far this goes. Once I have everything in place, I would move!

What helps you work better? Any more tips?

Shaheed Bhagat Singh - 23rd Mar 1931

I have seen this video at least 100 times in last few days. What started as a joke with a colleague has turned into an obsession. Safaroshi ki tammana ab humare dil main hai, dekhna hai zor kitna baazu-e-quatil main hai. This poem, by Ram Prasad 'Bismil', became a clarion call during the Indian independence movement. So much so that it is still used at any anti-establishment or even anti-anti-establishment "agitation".

Anyways, coming back to what I started ranting on, 23rd March (in 1931) is when Bhagat Singh was hanged to death (along with Sukhdev and Rajguru for murder of one J.P. Saunders*). And I, Saurabh Garg, dint even know this till I saw an update from a friend on FB. So much for my patriotism and Bhagat Singh fandom.

Bhagat Singh died at the young age of 24. If he would have lived on, he would have change the course of history. His ideas, radical they may sound, were far ahead of his times and I completely subscribe to the same. He was a very well read man even at that young age. From russian revolutionaries to poets to world leaders, he had read them all. His sense of logic was impeccable. Some of the thing he said (wrote) are just brilliant. Few got very famous (like Why I Am An Atheist and his views on marriage) but most were ignored. Both by common man and celebrated historians alike. I am in process of reading more about him and his ideas. Its a slow and a painful process.

When I was 24, I was using MBA as an excuse to waste my time and my parents hard earned money. And there was this guy who was 24 and he could think like that and he died for his country. What purpose does my life solve? Why am I even alive?

Links

• Shahidbhagatsingh.org
  
• Bhagatsinghstudy is a good resource in case someone is interested in reading more about Bhagat Singh.
• My Bhagat Singh bookamarks on delicious
  

BTW I write while I was reading a philosophical debate between the use of a pixel or a point while designing webpages with CSS. I still havent been able to figure out which to use. Any recommendations?

*Pity that I had to look up on wikipedia to know why Bhagat Singh was hanged to death. Sucks again !

Value Add - Price Premium

While creating a philosophy for Cyntax, I have been thinking what kind of businesses can command a price premium. I think the businesses in the value chain that add "unique" value to the end product are the ones where you can ask for money. This is probably as old and as commonsensical as Michael Porter's work on value chains, but realizing it myself, was an achievement.

Let me take an example. The tee shirts business. Three most important components are the supplier, the designer and the retailer. The supplier can not ask for a premium. Simply because he is manufacturing a commodity. There are bound to be many suppliers with similar or near similar offerings and only thing that all suppliers can compete on is the price. A retailer, might command premium if he is a large player and has a ready set of customers. Someone like, say Big Bazaar. But over a period of time, with Internet eliminating all kinds of middle men, a marketer would no longer need a retailer to sell his products. Cases in point being zappos (ok, zappos is a retailer), threadless and cafepress.

On the other hand, if you are someone like Tantra or People Tree or Play Clan, you add value to a basic white tee shirt. You add a unique design and print that design. You dont sell just a tee shirt. You sell this design that no one else can do. And you thus ask for a premium. To compete with a Tantra, I wont need the supplier, I wont need the retailer but I would need a designer. Obviously I am assuming that I would be able to squeeze the suppliers and command terms to the retailers and create a fantastic online community (and a shop).

Tee shirt business is ok. What about travel business? Who will command a premium?

Travel chain has two components - service providers (airlines, railways) and agents (Traditional, OTA). Off the two, agents can only sell the inventory that service providers make available. And its a simple business where you add zilch value (online agents add value in the sense that they make available the inventory real time) and hence they cant command a premium. Moment an agent asks for a premium, the user would move on to the next agent. You compete on mindshare and again, cost!

What about HR consultancies? Petrol pumps? FMCG companies? Who do you think commands a premium? What to you guys think?

Sixth Sense !

Just saw this video on TED featuring Pattie Mae and Pranav mistry of MIT Media Lab. She introduced a wearable device that can present meta information (that already exists) anywhere anytime (assuming the phone supports Internet connection) just by looking at it. Few applications that they showed include looking at your boarding card to know your flight status, clicking pictures, reading book reviews from Amazon by just looking at the barcode, knowing about a person by just looking at his face.



They use basic technology tools - a camera, a mirror, a rechargeable battery, pointers and a cellphone (for communication) to bring to life possibilities that bring the entire world literally on your finger tips. In the team's words, SixthSense is

a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand gestures to interact with that information.

Its more than QR Codes, Microsoft Surface, iPhone, a digital personal assistant. All put together. Wish it comes to life soon. And this is what I can the New New Thing.

Links
Project SixthSense homepage
TED Talk

Gulaal - Yaara Maula

Track: Yaara Maula
Lyrics: Rahul Ram, Aushim, Piyush Mishra
Movie: Gulaal

Ever since I saw, Gulaal, I have been gung ho about it. As I said earlier too, I cant decide if I hate the movie or love it. But one thing is for sure - I couldnt ignore it. The music is super awesome. The lyrics are even better. Here is the best track from the movie.

Yaara Maula

Yaadon mein hai ab bhi
Kya sureela wo jahaan tha
Hamaare haathon mein rangeen gubbare they aur, dil mein mehekta samaa tha

Yaara Maula

Wo to khwabon ki thi duniya
Wo kitaabon ki thi duniya
Saans mein they machalte hue zalzale, aankh mein wo suhaana nasha tha

Yaara Maula

Wo zameen thi aasmaan tha
Humko lekin kya pata tha
Hum khade they jahaan par usi ke kinaare par gehra sa andha kuaan tha

Yaara maula

Phir wo aayi bheed bankar
Haath mein they unke khanjar
Bole phenko ye kitaabein
Aur sambhalo ye salaakhein

Ye jo gehra sa dhooaan hai
Haan haan andha to nahi hai
Is kooein mein hai khazana
Kal ki duniya to yahin hain
Kood jao le ke khanjar
kaat daalo jo ho andar
Tum hi kal ke ho Shivaji
Tum hi kal ke ho Sikandar

Humne wo hi kiya jo unhone ne kahaa
kyunki unki to khwahish yahi thi

Hum nahi jaante ki ye kyun ye kiya
kyun ki unki farmaaish yahi thi

Ab hamaare lagaa jaayka khoon ka
ab bataao karein to karein kya
nahi hai koi jo hamein kuch bataaye
Bataao karein to karein kya

Via Musicaloud

Have a life !

I found this at Sudhanshu Gupta 3.0.

Gulaal - Pseudo Review

And then I saw Gulaal, yet another Anurag Kashyap movie (after Dev D) that I cant decide if I liked it or hated it. At times I wanted to compare it to Haasil, at times to Rang De Basanti and at times to Gangajal.

Movie's got AWESOME music. Wonderful voice talent, sound direction and lyrics. In fact I can compare the lyrics for gulaal to what Rabbi Shergill writes. We need more song writers like these in the main-stream.

It made me aware of the underground movement for Rajputana. I never imagined that the kings that were removed after independence are still struggling for their princely states. Need to read more about them.

BhimaShankar: The Sepia Tones

Title: The Sepia Tones
Equipment: Sony Ericson K790i
Date: 14 Mar 2009
Time: 6:16 PM
Place: Way back from BheemaShankar to Mumbai, Maharashtra

P.S.: I did not choose the color settings as Sepia. This is how the place looked ! 

Drive to Bhimashankar

Apart from regular games of pool and counter-strike, this time on the weekend, me and Vivek did a roadtrip to Bhimashankar. Bhimashankar boasts of a wild life sanctuary, famous treks and one of the 12 Shiv Jyotirlings.

Roadtrip was full of mountains, rains, landscapes, sheep, dams, rivers, sunshine, clean air, people walking long miles, going from nowhere to nowhere. The drive to Bhimashankar is easily the most scenic drive I have even taken in India (better than my trek to Chandratal and Rohtang Pass).


I got to know about the place from Milind Gunaji's book - Offbeat tracks in Maharashtra. It is some 260 KMs from Mumbai and easiest way to reach there is by the Mumbai Pune Expressway and take the exit at Talegaon. Then you drive on for about 3 hours to reach the Shiva temple.

This is one of those places where the journey is more exciting and fun than the destination.