Goa's biggest event: Carnival!!!

It's surprising!

Goa's biggest carnival doesn't even feature as Goa's biggest event.

People don't realise, Goa is bigger than the geography of Goa.

Today, Goans are spread around the world, from Kenya to Canada.

Goans speak English, Hindi, Konkani and Marathi.

So why is it that the Carnival is only for Goans in Goa, and not those across the world.

This here, is our focus on making the Goa Carnival the biggest event in the world, with the aim of being the most trended topic on Twitter during the Carnival.

We are bringing one of India's best dance academies, Étoile from Pune, to train our people for the biggest carnival of the year, in Rumba, Jive or Freestyle.

So, how can you help?

Start by choosing your favourite poster and posting about this to your friends, enemies and family.

Spread the word to those who feel disconnected with Goa, and want all the movies and pictures of the Carnival.

Update: The Float will be in aid of Childline and Connecting India.

Update: Use #goacarnival to follow all the happenings.

Email etiquette

In India, we really tend to forget that Email needs a specific thought, to ensure that it is effectively used.

The Spam button is just a click away.

Here are a few tips to keep your mail away from the Spam box:

1. As far as possible, try to keep the subject line very direct and to the point. When writing to a client, it helps to keep your company name in the subject line, especially if you aren't using a company ID.
2. Never express emotion in an email. If you feel that an issue needs to be addressed, use the phone.
3. Try to limit your email to a maximum of 5 lines, otherwise you're going to lose a lot of blackberry users trying to read your email on their tiny screen.
4. If you can break up every email body into what the call to action is for the reader, based on your expressed need, you can be sure to get a good response most of the time.

Your phone, your personal navigator

Anyone following the news, will hear about Google Labs launching mapping downloads for Android phones.

This is a big deal, because till now, anyone using Google maps, is either on an unlimited download data plan, or they’re paying a lot of money for accessing maps on their Android phone.

If you have a GPS enabled phone, it means that when you switch on your mapping application, the GPS receiver finds out your latitude and longtitude through connecting with satellites directly. This has been free ever since the U.S. Government released their GPS satellites for civilian use.

Then, the mapping application needs to use the latitude and longtitude (called Geocode) to pinpoint your location on the map, which is properly marked with respect to latitude and longitude for every pixel(called geo-referencing). The usual problem with Google Maps, is that all this mapping data is stored on the server, hence you end up downloading nearly 1MB of data everytime you need to check your location.

Similarly, every time you search for a restaurant on Google Maps, you are actually searching for a geocode, which means that in addition to searching online for the restaurant’s location, you are also searching for the geocode, then pinpointing the geocode on the mapping data on Google Map’s server and then downloading this to your phone. Again, this will take around 1MB of data.

Hence, finding your location takes 1MB every time, which is also the same data used to find a restaurant on Google Maps.

Now imagine searching for directions to a location using Google Maps. Your location takes 1MB of data, and your destination takes 1MB of data.

For the mapping application to give you directions to a location, means that as you move, the application is constantly downloading data en-route to your location. Hence, the more distance from your location to the destination, more data is used, which could be around 10MB.

This is the reason why your mapping application, today actually consumes more bandwidth and battery power.

Now, on the N8, since Nokia has their own maps after acquiring Navteq, you can actually download the entire map for your country, in my case India, in one shot, of around 200MB, over Wifi, which typically is free for most users in India today.

After you make the initial download, then you go to your settings, and change the Internet setting to Offline.

From now on, you can get directions without connecting to the internet at all, except maybe after six months, when you might want to upgrade all this data for free, from Nokia.

You can choose various voices for navigation, including a Surfer Dude, who can get irritating by saying “Turn left, not my left dude!”

But overall, the accuracy of the maps within city limits is pretty good, as with most mapping data, they would cover more national highways, and provide more data only when you reach populated areas.

Videos on the N8

The fun part about playing videos on the N8, is something called HDMI. What it basically means it that both the sound and the image, go out the same port, the HDMI port in this case.

Now just attaching the N8 to the HD screen is not enough.

What you should also do, is download an application from the Ovi Store called Nokia Bigscreen. Now this is where your phone truly comes alive.

Not only does Nokia Big Screen come with a media player to play all your music movies and pictures on the HD screen directly, it also provides the option of using a remote control like the Nintendo Wii remote or other remote controls like the PS3 remote, or a Bluetooth Keyboard(because, if you haven’t figured it out already, these all work on Bluetooth).

Another interesting thing is that it has a great screensaver option, which automatically goes through your pictures on the phone, so if you got some pictures you don’t want the others to see, I suggest you don’t leave the application idle for too long.

Since the HDMI cord has audio and video, you will get the audio directly from the T.V.

However, in case you want an independent output, I suggest you try the F.M. transmitter again, and use the radio to catch the audio output.

With regard to taking videos, the only issue here is that the flash will not come on during recording, so make sure you have ample light during recording.

Video quality is damn good, as long as you keep the setting on high. Don’t forget, that since you are recording in HD, the size of the videos are huge, like around 18MB for a 20 second clip, so be careful about uploading, preferably over an unlimited broadband connection.

And yes, you can directly upload videos through Youtube.

Another interesting application is Qik and Tout made famous by Shaq’s retiring video, but for nothing fancy, Youtube is just about right.

One thought, though.

Try to not actually start taking videos of people in the beginning, unless you shooting another wedding or birthday party.

Also, try to limit your videos to around twenty seconds in length, so that you actually are able to find something worth filming, and then with experience, increase this time gradually. But since you are filming on a phone, twenty seconds is all the viewer time you will ever get.

Techie? Nah, not me.

Why being called a Techie is a bad thing!

It sucks. Because being called a Techie, is just as bad as being called a black, or a Dalit.

It basically creates stereotypes, where in some cases they are not warranted.

Take my case for example.

Engineer, yes!

M.B.A. , yes! .. in a technical field like Telecom Management.

I.T. Firm in Bangalore, yes!

But that’s where it all ends.

Because I worked in tiny companies, the first one having around four people, the second having just around 150. A typical I.T. company has around 2000.

So yeah, I worked my way up. I started giving big gyaan to my boss in the beginning about how chatting software was a bunch of crap, it needed more stuff like games and the ability to identify your location, eight years ago.

Then got into the slightly bigger company, where I started giving gyaan about how sucky our mobile software was, that fuck our engineers, make something my mom or dad could use. They said “Speak to Nokia or Vodafone, they tell us what to do!”

Then I got into a digital advertising firm, where they looked at me in my formal wear and asked “Kya tu security wala hai kya?” I liked formals, I think they make me look thinner.

I liked advertising, the relationship with the client was more real, more personal. That’s when it got too personal, I mean at least at the I.T. firm I would run off from work and go meet real people having real coffee, not that crap you get out of the machine.

Here, it was about being on a perpetual high, with the same people all the fucking time.

Your clients would be the nicest ever, because they could be the crudest ever too!

It felt nice to wear jeans to work, but it also meant that you were perpetually working.

Never helped that it was Mumbai, the place where constantly working meant normal living.

But then people were like “Oh, you are one of them advertising types”. I was like “Huh?”

So if you wear jeans the whole day, even for meetings, you were one of them “Advertising guys”

It meant that I was someone who was fresh out of college, who was all “Yo, Dude, whassssup!” kind of all the time.

Wearing formals was something which was so uncouth, because it made you “Uncle” or something.

So, techie? Nah, not me.

Gaming on the N8

One of my favourite games on the N8(one of the first phones with a graphics card, the Broadcom BCM2727 GPU) has to be Galaxy on Fire.

The first thing which impresses you on start, is that it actually asks you if you would like the audio on or off, which makes it much less intrusive than Angry Birds, where you’re sitting in this comparatively tranquil environment, and suddenly the soundtrack jumps out of nowhere and you look all around hoping no one notices it was you! Like any desktop game, you can choose to either enable the music or the sound effects.

Another impressive thing, is that this is the full game. Fishlabs mentions 20 hours game play, but I’ve been playing it for over a month now, and it shows no signs of ending, thank god!

N8 has been shortchanged by other games such as Angry Birds, where you only get certain versions like Seasons and Rio to play, and if you want the whole game, well, you’re going to have to pay for it. The only other option, is to actually buy an Android phone to get the whole game.

Being someone who started off on First Person Shooter games such as Wolfenstein, at a point where I actually thought the password was six stars. From there, it was Half Life, then Counterstrike and a little bit of Call of Duty.

The first flight simulation game I had ever played was the Aero Mission 3D fighter on the Sony Ericsson K750. Cut to Galaxy on Fire on the N8, and you have an experience worth dumping your desktop computer for.

You have multiple slots for saving the game, which you should, considering that the game only gets saved when you finish each mission, so if you start selling your cargo and then lose a mission, you’re going to have to go back and sell your cargo again, which gets to be a bit of a pain.

You get to play with different kind of ships, each ship has a different level of maneuverability, cargo hold, and different kind of weapons, which is truly amazing for a mobile game. My favourite is the Centaur ship, but you won’t reach that till you conquer quite a few planets.

Don’t forget to keep checking the Shop at each planet or space station for new toys and weapons. Try to get the Thermo weapon as soon as possible, and then follow it up with a good missile and photon combination.

Lasers get better and better, so don’t be too eager to dump them.

When you start actual game play, what will surprise you, is the absence of directional controls on the screen, like you would see on Tekkan Mobile. Galaxy on Fire gives you full accelerometer control, so you tilt the screen to move in any direction. The other option is to use the touch pad which is a pleasant experience when you want to lie down and play, say on a train or in bed.

The missile and boost controls only appear when available, where the boost control actually slowly flickers when it is almost ready, so watch for it. My favourite move, is to wait for the enemy ship to come close, and then fire a missile, since otherwise the missile just oscillates around the target ship for a long time.

The closing screen during the end of each mission, is not repetitive, it actually shows you the continuation of your last move, even if you’re shooting a missile, which looks spectacular.

Okay, now here is the special thing about gaming on the N8. Switch on the F.M. Transmitter and tune your radio on your home theatre to it. Once you’re connected, pump up the volume, and you are able to then play the game on any audio system(which has a radio), without connecting a single wire.

The experience is awesome.

Note: This post has been published in Mobigyaan .

Confederate Hellcat C3 X132 – The Koenigsegg of bikes

Steve Jobs was a gaming guy starting a computer company. Maybe a stretch, but what about a lawyer launching an avant-garde motorcycle company?
Confederate Motors Inc. is a 19 year old company, formed by Matthew Chambers, a man who first ran his father’s pool hall at the age of 17, to have enough money for law college, to running for Louisiana State Representative in 1982, to winning his largest awarded case involving police brutality in 1990.
That’s when he then decided to move to his “labour of love”, where he sold his private law practice to create “enlightened design through true American inspiration”.
But what about their bikes? The biggest unofficial accolade is custom bike designers right from Paul Teutel Jr. to Akshay Varde, swearing that the Hellcat is the best production motorbike ever made.
I guess the first thing is to look at motorbikes in India first. The Royal Enfield Bullet, is one of the strongest bikes around today. Contrast this with the Yamaha R15, which has so much fiber on it, you wonder if there is any bike left.
The new Pulsar from the initial naked bike look, has sadly too, taken up a lot of the fibre right from the rear end to the batwing fairing in front.
Cut to the X132 Hellcat. You don’t see any fibre here at all and not much of a seat either. This is a bike which is quite literally, all engine and nothing else.
For all this power, the weight is unbelievably low at 215 kilogrammes.
Confederate’s philosophy from the beginning has been to create an amalgamation of engine and bike, which first culminated in the F131 Hellcat, a motorbike which impresses with it’s crazy three high intensity zenon bulbs in front, instead of the usual big headlamp. After that, came the incredible hooded Wraith with LED lamps which are truly mesmerizing to look at. Each motorbike looks like something grown, something from the stars.
But, how do they compare to that Milwaukee manufacturer of motorcycles with their own cult following, who has also launched their range in India. Well, with the C3 X132 Hellcat which is around double the price of a typical Night Rod special and one-fourth the price of its predecessors, the aim is to target around 10% of the top Harley Davidson customers across the world.
Horsepower? Well, the cheeky guys at Confederate, have only one word to say about that, with over 145 foot pounds of torque, claimed to be the highest torque-to-weight ratio for any other production bike in the world, that word would “Sufficient”!
The engraving on the side of the tank seem almost alien, making you wonder if this motorbike is truly terran.
The bike, claimed to be the toughest most long lasting motorcycle which could ever be created, bears great testimony to the company itself, which, despite losing its factory to Hurricane Katrina and moving to Alabama, rebuilt itself from the ashes and still continued to meet schedules for their other motorbikes such as the Wraith and the Fighter.
If only these pages, could do justice, to what a powerful force of nature this motorbike is. Every inch is so well thought out, it will make you want to rethink your own vehicle, make you wonder why you need all that extra weight.
While the F131 truly look like a beast of the underworld, with a lot of weaving and waning of the intakes and exhaust, the C3 X132 looks like a beast of another galaxy, with it’s straight lines, engraved tank, horizontal seat, and an overall worship of everything geometric.
While the F131 was a woman powerful, the C3 X132, is a woman ethereal, with the ability to do the unthinkable, and not bat an eyelid while doing it.
Before you pack your bags for America, hang on a minute. You could actually order their motorbikes directly from their online store along with a range of goodies including the X132 Copperhead motor for twenty one large ones.
Considering that India is already seeing the likes of Maserati and Koenigsegg, look forward to the Hellcat unleashing its hellish roar here soon.

Photo courtesy: Confederate Motorcycles under a Creative Commons License.

Waiting List: Purgatory on Earth

When my friend told me that I was on a waiting list number of 13, for the Second A/C berth to Kerala, I was cool. I thought that was a small number, thinking that within 10 days it would clear up.

Boy, how wrong was I? The second A/C carriage is just one, with hardly about 20 passengers.

It's only when I stepped into the carriage, that I realised that I was as good as someone with no ticket at all, the kind that gets kicked off at the next station.

So why Purgatory?

Well, Purgatory is this place between Heaven and Hell, where you get judged on whether you go up (Heaven), or down (Hell). Of course, till we actually reach there, but once we do, that's when all hell (not literally, at least not yet :p )breaks loose.

You look for the nearest person who shows a little sympathy, and maybe offers you Hope, Hope that there is a side door somewhere which will get you on the list, someone who can bypass all this stress and just get you in.

Well, at least in my case, there was just the ticket collector, who knew of course, that the biggest plight of a passenger on a 31 hour train journey, is where does he sleep those two nights.

Thankfully, the ticket collector took me to a bed which was vacant till 3.30 in the morning.

I was like "What do I do after that?" That's when I saw a bit of Hell in his eyes, and realised being at his mercy, I should back off, and hope that the guy who comes at 3.30 a.m. is more merciful.

Well, 3.30 a.m. showed it's ugly head, and that's when I realised that I got lucky yet again, for the passenger let me sleep it off, while he had his few nips.

My brush with Purgatory, was close. Next time, I make sure the ticket collector is on my side, along with the rest of the world.

You, my friend, must learn from this.

Never, ever , never, get a waiting list ticket for the second class A/C.

Unless it is a number 6 on the way to Goa :P Now that was Heaven! :D

Jar Ornament

I had just travelled to Mumbai after nearly four years of working in Bangalore.
Mumbai was rough, comparatively, what I would call a brown skinned London, because people were equally cold, although always willing to give directions.
In London, they would say you only knew if someone passed away, by the untouched milk bottle.
Had also moved away from the Information Technology industry, into advertising, so the cushy sit around surf-the-internet-all-day days were long gone.
Here you had clients who believed it was their right of way, to call you at all times of night and day, expecting you to solve all the problems they create.
Working in a place which was just a fifteen minute walk(despite which I would travel by my Bullet :P ) away from my home, was actually even worse, considering I ended up working even longer hours.
Being a big fan of the roadside grub, eating outside food in Bangalore most of the time, I would stick to my usual Pani Puri Bhel Puri fare.

What this did to my tummy, was turn my insides into a big gooey paste.
My face started getting boils, where due to my dry skin, I never had any my whole life.
The guys in office really suffered, especially when I started breaking wind. Actually had people bringing deodorants to office soon :D

Called my mother, who used to work at Tata Cancer. She recommended me to her senior doctor in Sion.
Struggled to reach there through the traffic. Ended up at the wrong building and rode back.
In the clinic, I see these wierd bottles of some kind of organ. Not sure, but someone said that was a colon.
Finally, I go in to see the doctor. He looked like Groucho Marx in the flesh.
He looked me up and down, asked about my mum, then gave me a checkup where he just pressed certain points around my stomach and said "Werner, this is not Bangalore, you have to be very careful with what you eat. I recommend you stay off all outside food, except maybe for those grilled sandwiches and buttermilk."
Then he asked me about my typical schedule.
He said"Werner, you need to slow down. Look at me. When I first started, I hardly even had time to see my kids, because I would always delay due to extra work. No one can make you work more than you want to. Today, my receptionist will not even let people in after 7 p.m. since that is my deadline."

It was like he read my mind, giving me a mental checkup as well as a physical checkup.

I moved on, it taking me nearly six months to get my system back in order.

But, I will never forget that colon suspended in that jar.