Friday, September 23, 2005
Dinner at Sachin's tomorrow
Overkill
The Houston evacuation seems to be overkill. Katrina has had everyone spooked - including W, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Biomimicry
Mimicking the biological world.
Google called arrogant
Walt Mossberg calls Google "arrogant" and rightly so, imho, for GMail.
"I'm sure Gmail will get better and better, and will eventually adopt the new programming techniques that allow desktop-like ease of use. But I'm not sure Google's arrogance will ever make room for user preferences on things like folders or ads, or how emails are grouped."
I doubt if all groups in Google are following the good new product design practices that Microsoft and other companies have adopted over the last 5 years or so. Did they conduct any need analysis? (Does anyone need the Desktop bar?) Are they doing any usability analysis? (GMail)
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Silicon Valley is booming
Rents are up - both commercial and residential. Parking lots are full - both commercial and residential.
Corpus Christi
Hurricane Rita may hit Corpus Christi head on, and it's being evacuated right now. I called up Russ (my contact at the city government there) yesterday and he was not worried at all. "Maybe it'll hit over the weekend - there's still some time," he said. I called him up today to ask him a question about our project with the City, and he was quite annoyed. He was preparing to move his family out. Oops! It was insensitive of me. The situation had changed. Russ, Corpus Christi, best of luck!
I don't think the buildings there are designed to handle this type of a hurricane. I remember hearing the phrase "Category 3 hurricane" in a conversation there (the tone implied that "Category 3 hurricane" = "an impossible event"). I hope the WiFi boxes don't fly off the poles.
I think the city will be fine. New Orleans didn't suffer any significant damage from the storm itself - it was the levees that caused all the grief. No weird geography here.
Monday, September 19, 2005
Seinfeld again
For many many years now, I've silently suffered thru many 'did you see that Seinfeld episode?' situations. My answer was always no. Until a couple of days ago. Ed asked me if I'd seen the one where they run out of gas on the freeway. And I had! Seinfeld is getting dated.
Advani's Exit
I'm not going to waste any tears over Advani. I never really liked him. (He did give me a medal for my tenth position in Gujarat Board in Std. XII. Did he say "Bahot bahot shubhkamnayen"? I think he did. He was the Member of Parliament for Gandhinagar, and our part of Ahmedabad falls within the Gandhinagar constituency.)
When Advani made those comments about Jinnah in Pakistan, I thought this was all a well-orchestrated move to remake his image as that of a centrist figure a la Vajpayee. RSS would act all worked up and that will only increase Advani's appeal among the more centrist people. It's still possible that this exit from BJP presidency in December may not materlialize at all.
New York Times not free anymore
All good things must come to an end. Thank God for blogs.
