The Prince Charming diaries

The simple question is Why this kolaveri ?

I have often been accused of being passive about my political stances on social issues and I admit to being guilty as charged. But there is a reason for that. Active stances require a smart game plan and stable resources to work and immediately I do not have neither. So I stick with self-correction and lobbying; passive methods but crucial to ensure that I am not part of the problem. On the day that I will need to deliver, it will flow. There is a bigger reason for a passive stance too. Most of the people I get to see over a day or a month or a year are not really involved in the process of political wrong. So dropping free advice or biting them with my sarcasm while they are running the breast cancer marathon is just not a smart idea. One has to be careful on what that services - the goal or my ego. No ego in the world needs to be serviced even slightly for any reason. The goal is better serviced when the active stance is made when you need to make it. When you see it happen drop that grenade. I have concluded from practice that capital action can be a brilliant deterrent.

Today I take a semi-active stance. The real focus of this post is more specific to one particular social issue - urban male angst. It is not the worst issue in the world but it is the one that does not make the news unless a crime is involved. But what if you are not a criminal? Most of the backstories are quite heart-rending and rarely is romance not involved. Almost every story starts out like a fairly tale until reality hits. The nice guy. Finished last. Treated like a slave. Ignored. Used. Abused. Left alone. Dumped. Cheated on.  My heart goes out to you brother. Man-hug. What follows is where the problem begins and the problem is not how to deal with it - that takes care of itself - the problem is how to deal with that the right way and man is that a problem! A dangerously emotional series of generalizations and oversimplifications about the opposite sex ensues. Why are they so fickle? Why are they so shifty? Why don't they care? What is their agenda? Why are they so selfish? How are they so happy? Where is the conscience? All that crazy questioning and the lack of answers compound into a rage-fueled violent volcano of angst. Sluts. Bitches. Whores. All of them. Wrong route bro. You don't understand them right now but when you are emotional and full of sympathy for yourself, you don't want to understand anything. In that pool are our moms and sisters and the women that will be the grandmothers of our brood. You should grieve for your loss and your pain but you cannot expect a perfect correlation between your aspirations and what you get on the plate.

There are two flags that I always proudly wave - the Florida Gator flag and the feminism flag. I hear that both are insufferable. But I will accept criticism only for the former. Yes, egalitarianism is the ideal to be achieved but we are not at an equal stage now to expect that! It is a mirthless joke that the same gentlemen that applaud affirmative action do not have the same level of enthusiasm for feminism. Let us step away to a gender neutral plane for a moment and just observe what seems to be happening around the world right now. Major news on human rights violations. Rape, abuse, dowry - I want to see some statistics on what majority of that happens with the male sex. Polygamy, wherever an issue, is a male exercise. The last time I heard, there still are more men than women in the world and that is a population statistic, not a genetic effect. Women that have not technically been abused still have their own little stories of public discomfort, lewd behavior and correspondence molestation. I haven't heard male equivalents of such stories. Well I have, but they are summed up by one word - awesome. It could be argued that males have psychological trauma but that is precisely the point. That is all they have to worry about! Women have to deal with the psychological part as well as physical human rights violations. Way bigger problem.  So damn right they will be fickle. They don't know if the next approaching male is the Mr. nice guy you claim to be or Chester the molester. Until we can guarantee, at least statistically, that crimes against women are mostly gone, the female insecurity will stay part of the package. Deal with it, because our representatives are involved actively against your guarantees and mine. If you want better, find them, stop them, castrate them.

It is true that there can still be some selfish cats out there that scratch despite your best efforts but that is not a gender issue anymore. The men and women that are burnt pay for either inexperience or stupidity, and both have to be paid for because they make that choice. Nice guys don't finish last, nice guys without balls do. What race is this anyway? Nobody can certify permanency or insurance in this department. Hold the rage horses, channel that inner gentleman and stay classy brothers. 

Commencement

August 15 2008

Rob walked in with a gimpy dance and an impish grin.

"What is it?"

I grunted tiredly. I did not want to stare away from my computer screen.

"Apparently it is the Indian independence day today. But I know one indian that is still ruled by a brit!"

Rob's eyebrows arched as he awaited my reply. But the right look was sufficient. A snort later, I was back to my real space tour through the AAV surface landscape.

**********

April 27 2012

Her excellency, the Indian ambassador to the United States had been droning on for about 25 minutes. 'Wrongest person for a commencement address ever' I thought as I zoned in and out of the speech to grab random words about India, Indira Gandhi and something about a golden sparrrow. Where was that Steve Jobs material? It did not matter; I was getting my forty winks for the day. It was excusable though. The one thing I had developed through graduate school was large attention span for dry talks. If her excellency was able to lull me to static, she deserved to.

Just as I zoned in one last time, she had to talk about how the british were driven out of India. I felt a nudge on my left rib. It was Rob. He smiled and released an invisible bird from his hand. I chuckled. He turned back to the her excellency but I kept staring at him and Mavis on his side. This smile will not leave.

Fulfillment

I am structural virologist. I determine and analyze the 3-D structure of viruses at an atomic scale to identify how they function. My PhD. thesis work focussed on how different pH levels affect the structure  of Adeno-Associated Viruses to enable proper virus infection.

Ladies and gentlemen, this degree has been earned.

The greatest thing

Twenty days from now, I can technically be referred to as a doctor. The funny thing is I don't feel any more scholarly and I definitely cannot cure cancer. So I have created a personal yardstick for the required scholarliness to satisfy this doctorate. If I can describe my work and my scientific interests within 3 sentences or 30 seconds (whichever comes first) to any random layman that I meet, I can keep the right to be called a doctor. Otherwise, I would just be another elitist degree holder. 

Productivity, macbooks and buffet dinners.

I am a socialist at heart but I am not blind to the distinct advantages of capitalism. Since it is all so very complicated, it is important to think about how we are going to work with the system around us to ensure that we a) make the most of what we get and b) make quicker but more intelligent decisions on what we choose. So how do you go about buying a shoe?

The problem with product satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) is mostly not with bad purchasing but with the fear of bad purchasing even after the deed is done. This is primarily an ill-effect of excessive choice in the market. You buy a bad shoe, it is not a big deal; next time you don't buy that shoe. But when you buy something decent is when this problem creeps up. Nike free's or reebok realflex? How about the vibrams?  To average users, these choices and the sub-choices within them, just by sheer numbers, are much too large and overwhelming. But the worst effect of excessive choice is not in how difficult it is to make the choice. It is in how you are going to enjoy the choice you have made and actually focus on using those shoes for your workout. Many times, there is too much choice anxiety and therefore the focus on the actual use is lost. Makes sense - more choice, less focus.

So how do we wade through? Well, if it is decent stick with it. Take baby steps around to figure out large scale improvements but hold on to what you have and use it to the fullest. Interestingly, a lot of quality consumer products achieve it by minimal choice and greater focus on just quality. Apple will be today's example. For the smirking PC user, I am NOT an apple fanboy. But I have been using a macbook for the past three years and have not had much to complain about. In part, this is because I am more focussed on communicating with my folks, making my figures and listening to music, so there is hardly any time to look at the dust on the computer. It is important to understand that if any consumer product promises perfection, you are an idiot to believe it. There are no perfect things and PCs or Macs are no exception. But a quality product is where there would be minimal distractions - good or bad - to draw you away from the experience of actually using it. And that is where Apple delivers. It is not perfect and it still can give you a weird message during a powerpoint presentation. But it is quality enough to let you focus on your work. The immediate argument would be that there are PCs that do that too, and there definitely are. But Apple cleverly minimizes your choices in not just the products but also in the overall feel so you aren't so overwhelmed. That is why an apple fanboy comes across as an elitist - he has less to deal with so he can know more about it. Purchasing a PC on the other hand puts you in the unstable position of wading though a thousand different assemblies to figure out which one gets past the quality threshold. In contrast, I give you one thing but I promise you it will work decently and if it doesn't, I will give you good customer service to fix your problem. That is what Apple sells, not perfection. And it sells it well.

Now there is an other school of thought that says productivity is enhanced not by just making a good choice and using it well but also continuously upgrading and staying abreast with the latest. If you are an average consumer like me, steer clear - it is probably not worth it. In jumping from the latest version to the next version to the next version, the smaller the time and quality gaps are, the more counter-productive it is. By our previous definition, quality is established by minimal distractions and continuous maintenance is a pretty big distraction. You would rather wear that Adidas megabounce until it shows tear and then invest in those new Jordans. Besides, it is important to think about the time and money invested as a trade-off to the fractional improvement in experience. Yeah, if you are thinking about it for more than two seconds it is not worth it. Unless you are paid to critique or something, your upgrade from 3G to 4G did not change your life and you know it.

Very few companies like Apple stick with minimalism. Google is a decent example. So what is achieved by the others with grand choice? What do they get by scaring you away with choice? Why do they feed on your insecurity? The same reason why indian marriages have switched to the buffet system. When you have 20 different appetizers, 4 different cuisines and 25 different desserts to follow, somehow you end up eating a whole lot less! It is true, ask all your uncles with married daughters. The cost of the buffet is still Rs. 600 a plate but you eat for only half of that. It works the same way with pretty much everything. Yeah, I am talking about your 4 different sunglasses, 5 different headphones, 15 different coats and your 20 different shoes ladies! If 19 shoes don't fit your wardrobe or your feet, the 20th won't either.

So while choice is a good thing, and it improves quality by building competition, a company can turn the same on you and make you a victim of it. So calm down on the difference between 720p and 1080p just because you are worried about that douchebag friend-of-a-friend making a comment. If you are comfortable in your torn jeans, the joke's on him. Oh they now sell those in varieties. Damn.

Versus marketing

Rebecca Black is probably not a bad person. However if you are familiar with that name, you dislike and disrespect her. Heck her song is not nails-on-chalkboard material either. But I have just gotten judged negatively for saying that. And somewhere, someone is making a lot of money out of this situation.

The fundamental thing about contemporary marketing has become a drive to achieve the highest profit with the least possible effort. While that does not sound like a bad thing at all, a rabid pursuit of this ideal is something I find very undesirable. The problem with this concept is where it fixes the threshold of effort required. While it tries to minimize the effort involved by either the use of technology or some other iterative process the desired threshold for effort required is disrespected and that is where you end up with an inferior quality product that still manages to achieve the desired profit. The world is rank with such output and there is more being pumped out by the day. The marketers are happy, the makers are happy and somehow the public is happy and therefore the concept is here to stay. But there is a problem.

A strong link exists between effort taken and fun generated. Not too much focus is put on the matter but many think about it in some form or the other. Why are we such big fans of the old school way of doing things? Ideally we should have improved on old school methods and ended up with superior grade products that have the positive elements from the old school ways with newer additions thus making it some sort of super product. Somehow that does not seem the case in pretty much everything around us. The current generation of television cartoons is a computer-generated pile of colorful tripe with toilet humor and painfully stretchy formulaic situations that really need to be used in some kind of torture chamber. To my horror, all my nieces delightfully lap up hours of that treatment with their proud parents buying into all of it. The old-school merry melodies and silly symphonies that I grew up with were not just cartoons, they were productions. There was beautiful hand-drawn artwork and perfectly orchestrated music to go with it. The music was in fact a celebration and the cartoon characters came to life to etch out the music in all that they did. I am not alone in stating that these classics are a better watch any day over the current computer monsters. Then why does the industry not cater to this market?

I have really put a lot of effort into understanding the current class of industrial music with its autotune and repeat sound effects but I have failed. There was a time when music too was a production, every hit song - an original string of great synchrony and every album - a story that spoke many volumes. Why is there not a single great band of the likes of the beatles in current existence? Some grey old remains of the rock bands of yore still remain but they have over lasted their shelf life.

Indeed it is a difficult thing to create something and that is why Ilayaraja does not make the kind of music that he used to in his prime. However, just because there are easier ways to make money, a pursuit of aesthetic value in everything that we do should not be abandoned! There, that is my problem.

So there is a system that comes into existence. Someone likes something. Someone else creates it. We define it, study it and become scholars on the subject. And then we try to apply it and that is where we fail. Trying to define a winning formula is like trying to define love; it is impossible and most every one of us fails. But everyone sees a winning formula and tries to duplicate it to succeed. While they may or may not achieve their ends, here is where the dreaded marketing gurus come in and unleash their devastation on the system. It is hard for me to say this but I have to admit that current generation marketers are amazing at what they do. They know exactly how to make you crave for something, whether you appreciate its true value or not. That is why everyone of us has a google+ ID even though we do not know what to do with it. A sinister marketing drive tells you that you must have this because everyone has it and the social police will ensure your embarrassment if you don't. While we may laugh off this stupidity in all our badass right, the effect of the need to remain fitted into society is very powerful and while it should ideally never be subscribed to, it needs to be respected because most of us are subscribers.

So the marketers come up with a model. "Do a, b and c - all that are obvious parts of the winning formula that someone else put the effort to come up with and you will have a concoction that looks the part. For our bid, we will create an idea and influence minds to tell them that you are the drug that they need to be doing right now." Yeah, inception. The marketers are happy to make money out of it, the creator is happy to finish it off with least effort and the hypnotized public is told that happiness lies in following the shiny red dot.

But behind all of this madness, there is lost the aesthetic value of the product. The fun generated because there was an effort put into the product to just make it nice is lost. That is why google and apple products create such a controversy. It is not like they don't have flaws or they don't have formulaic marketing strategies. But in a broader strategy, a product like Macintosh is aesthetically done with the need to make it something elegant and not the need to implement something profitable with the least work.

So where are we getting? Whatever you do, do it because it is beautiful! It will be hard but it will be fun! Don't study for a degree. Don't learn the guitar to pick up groupies. Don't talk in pig latin because that is what gets you drinking beer with the jocks. Create something because it is fun. Put the effort because it deserves that and more. The market is like a little guy with horns on your shoulder telling you things that should not interfere with your drive to chase excellence. Don't become his zombie bitch.

How I created my studio

It all started with just my trusty Jack and Danny brothers EG3/P lead guitar - Lois. It had a great sound box but needed the right strings. So picked up a standard D'Addario nickel-would steel set and a plugandplay mini-amplifier and I was all set to just strum away at home. But then one day Matt decided that we needed to start jamming together. He did bring it up in the past but somehow it always got put off.
So one fine day we started jamming. A week later we decided that the most fun thing to do at the moment was to go to bestbuy to browse around. There I spotted a Dean Edge hammer bass and suddenly I just had to buy it. Of course I needed a decent amplifier to go with it so within a week came a Fender 10G basic amplifier that worked fine enough for both the bass - now named Lana - and the lead.
But what is a good guitar combo without a voice? So in came a Sony F-V220 Uni-directional microphone with MDR-XD200 headphones. There now had to be a system that allowed for digital recording of vocals and instruments together because garageband sounded so much better without ambient noise. The next piece of the puzzle was therefore a Behringer XENYX502 5-Channel Mixer. I could now connect both the lead and the bass as well as a mike but by now the old 10G amplifier did not seem juicy enough and so a Fender Mustang 1 got involved.
Did I mention that by now I had gotten tired of the old Danelectro distortion pedal so I invested in a Zoom G1N multi-effects pedal? Everything I did now involved wah-wah in some consistency or the other.
It has been one of my oldest wishes to learn to drum at some point in my life. Now seemed like a good time so an Alesis DM7 kit joined the band. The old 10G amplifier now had a new boss. Within a few weeks I had to admit, drumming is way more fun than strumming. It really is.
Of course no collection is complete without a keyboard so a Casio CTK-4000 entered the pack so I could be a little bit Maroon 5 if I chose to. And that is where it stands. For now.