Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tennis racquets. Heady feelings. A total racket.
Today, I wanted to purchase a tennis raquet. Read up, watched a couple of demonstrative clips, spoke to a couple of subject matter experts, and then homed in on the Wilson Nanoteam. From idea to execution. Seamless.
As I studied tennis racquet brands, a train of thought which you will soon get to know led me to remember this sentence which creates quite a racket by repeating the same word ad infinitum. Such as:
James, while John had had had had had had had had had had had the teacher's approval.
If you ask how, then here's what wiki says: (..) is an English sentence used to demonstrate lexical ambiguity and the necessity of punctuation,[1] which serves as a substitute for the intonation,[2] stress and pauses found in human speech ....(with punctuation) James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
So the racket I thought of, was this:
So why do we to Howard head head head head head head head was patented as an oversized racquet.
With punctuation: So, why do we to Howard Head head (go)? (Howard) Head head (led) Head (the company). (Howard) Head Head (racquet head) was patented as an oversized racquet (with a head size of 95-130 sq inches). Yep. Howard Head was at Prince when, frustrated with his mediocre game, he invented the oversized racquet. Amusingly, the wiki para ends with "Although Head revolutionized the game of tennis, his tennis skills did not significantly improve."
Anyhow, I first tried my luck at this store Planet Sports at the much frequented R City mall, sneaking away from work in the afternoon. Their racquet wares were appalling. They had an offer, two Wilson racquets and a box of tennis balls for Rs. 1,400. Whoa, what's the catch there? I almost fell for it, if not for a vital input provided by one of the consultants (see credits) What he told me was that racquets should be unibody. All those inexpensive racquets at R City (they had three Rs. 1000 odd variants) were not, and they apparently tend to break at the joint. This second piece they stick in is at the V just above the grip. Then, at that point, I more or less lost steam/hope (or guts), and put it off. However, this is where the second consultant stepped in and instilled some energy, and off I went post-work to Proline Sports, Santa Cruz west. And I was wowed, they had excellent variety. I browsed through their range looking for an oversized head racquet (95-130 sq. inch). And voila, there sat the Wilson Nanoteam, a 115 sq. inch head. Called so due to the "revolutionary technology nano carbon" - lettering part of the attractive frame graphics. The rest is history.
Credits: Shreedhar Shroff for telling me the had had had __ sentence. External consultants Vishal Palla and Rajat Gupta for stepping in at crucial moments. Rajat Gupta, the consultant. Shux, ominous. I should expect a call from the SEC.
As I studied tennis racquet brands, a train of thought which you will soon get to know led me to remember this sentence which creates quite a racket by repeating the same word ad infinitum. Such as:
James, while John had had had had had had had had had had had the teacher's approval.
If you ask how, then here's what wiki says: (..) is an English sentence used to demonstrate lexical ambiguity and the necessity of punctuation,[1] which serves as a substitute for the intonation,[2] stress and pauses found in human speech ....(with punctuation) James, while John had had "had", had had "had had"; "had had" had had a better effect on the teacher.
So the racket I thought of, was this:
So why do we to Howard head head head head head head head was patented as an oversized racquet.
With punctuation: So, why do we to Howard Head head (go)? (Howard) Head head (led) Head (the company). (Howard) Head Head (racquet head) was patented as an oversized racquet (with a head size of 95-130 sq inches). Yep. Howard Head was at Prince when, frustrated with his mediocre game, he invented the oversized racquet. Amusingly, the wiki para ends with "Although Head revolutionized the game of tennis, his tennis skills did not significantly improve."
Anyhow, I first tried my luck at this store Planet Sports at the much frequented R City mall, sneaking away from work in the afternoon. Their racquet wares were appalling. They had an offer, two Wilson racquets and a box of tennis balls for Rs. 1,400. Whoa, what's the catch there? I almost fell for it, if not for a vital input provided by one of the consultants (see credits) What he told me was that racquets should be unibody. All those inexpensive racquets at R City (they had three Rs. 1000 odd variants) were not, and they apparently tend to break at the joint. This second piece they stick in is at the V just above the grip. Then, at that point, I more or less lost steam/hope (or guts), and put it off. However, this is where the second consultant stepped in and instilled some energy, and off I went post-work to Proline Sports, Santa Cruz west. And I was wowed, they had excellent variety. I browsed through their range looking for an oversized head racquet (95-130 sq. inch). And voila, there sat the Wilson Nanoteam, a 115 sq. inch head. Called so due to the "revolutionary technology nano carbon" - lettering part of the attractive frame graphics. The rest is history.
Credits: Shreedhar Shroff for telling me the had had had __ sentence. External consultants Vishal Palla and Rajat Gupta for stepping in at crucial moments. Rajat Gupta, the consultant. Shux, ominous. I should expect a call from the SEC.
Labels: Esprit de sports
Monday, June 20, 2011
Getting Chatty.
When your gtalk client is not able to store conversations fully, why should you just chill out and have a Bhel Puri instead?
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Because you can't Sev Poori Chat.
Labels: Language Fusion, Witticisms
Morally depraved homo sapiens sapiens
“Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud.” -Willie Stark, in “All the King’s Men”.
Labels: Books, Quotable Quotes
Sunday, June 19, 2011
First Mover Disadvantage
(Note: I wrote this in Jan, much of it except for some minor tweaks is from back then: might explain some discrepancies you may come across)
I've heard the phrase "first mover advantage" time and again. Like most phrases/idioms, looking at the exact opposite also makes sense many-a-time. Maybe even more than the original one. Anyhow, these contrary phrases sure are sensational in nature. Case-in-point:"Count your chicken before they hatch". (Or the title which contributed in a way to getting you this far into this mire. Yeah, when it comes to luring people to my blog, I am nothing but just another Arindham Chaudhari and the blog is not different from those full page IIPM ads. I wear black colored thick-rimmed glasses, too. Ponytail is work in progress. Will add a picture of me sporting a wide grin to my blog when the pony is ready to go. To cantor, gallop. Won't be long, hold your horses.) I am sure there must be many, many more management books piggybacking on this theme (can you?). These idioms and phrases, they have the tendency to generalise, due to which it is so very easy to pick holes in the argument they are putting forth. For example, I once came across this: If actions speak louder than words, then why is the pen mightier than the sword. Then, an idle mind is a devil's workshop. Well, the best breeding ground for an outrageously creative idea may be an idle mind. Not a mind that is highly preoccupied by, say, business development presentations. Or client meetings. I am sure you can think up a couple yourself, and then please yourself by creating an argument for the counter. To warm-up, let me throw one at you: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Scroll down for the correct answer. If you have other phrase-contrary phrase pairs, please get back to us, and we have attractive prizes lined up for you. Or maybe not, for after all, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it".
I've heard the phrase "first mover advantage" time and again. Like most phrases/idioms, looking at the exact opposite also makes sense many-a-time. Maybe even more than the original one. Anyhow, these contrary phrases sure are sensational in nature. Case-in-point:"Count your chicken before they hatch". (Or the title which contributed in a way to getting you this far into this mire. Yeah, when it comes to luring people to my blog, I am nothing but just another Arindham Chaudhari and the blog is not different from those full page IIPM ads. I wear black colored thick-rimmed glasses, too. Ponytail is work in progress. Will add a picture of me sporting a wide grin to my blog when the pony is ready to go. To cantor, gallop. Won't be long, hold your horses.) I am sure there must be many, many more management books piggybacking on this theme (can you?). These idioms and phrases, they have the tendency to generalise, due to which it is so very easy to pick holes in the argument they are putting forth. For example, I once came across this: If actions speak louder than words, then why is the pen mightier than the sword. Then, an idle mind is a devil's workshop. Well, the best breeding ground for an outrageously creative idea may be an idle mind. Not a mind that is highly preoccupied by, say, business development presentations. Or client meetings. I am sure you can think up a couple yourself, and then please yourself by creating an argument for the counter. To warm-up, let me throw one at you: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". Scroll down for the correct answer. If you have other phrase-contrary phrase pairs, please get back to us, and we have attractive prizes lined up for you. Or maybe not, for after all, "The reward of a thing well done is to have done it".
So coming to first-mover-advantage, yeah, you know where I am going. There is always going to be a huge first-mover-disadvantage before ever getting to the point when you start realizing the first-mover-advantage. In the long run the first-mover-advantage may play out, but in the short term one has to acknowledge the first-mover-disadvantage too, and give it some standing in the highly competitive and dynamic world of corporate jargon. After all, nothing is easier than Copy-pasting, that's what the second-mover can do. On that line, even more attractive is the third-mover advantage. That's a series of management books which could be penned by somebody, let's say Mr. Arindham Chaudari as he is already pottering about in this post. First Mover Disadvantage. Sequel: Second mover Advantage. Then, Third Mover Advantage. Ad infinitum/nauseam.
After all the beating around the bush, let me come to the point: how I have seen the first mover disadvantage play out in my life.
1. Couple of years back I bought my Nokia N95 for a bomb, and contributing to the hefty price tag was the HSDPA (3.5G) capability: my research told me the 3G launch was imminent. There was a cheaper SonyEricsson UTMS (3G) option available but then the HSDPA tilted the scales in N95's favor (despite the wad of notes on the pan containing the SE). Of course, there were so many more cheaper phones, which those not keyed in to FMA were happy with. Two years hence, where is 3G in Mumbai? Not yet around! (This reminds me of an article I read in Hindu about whether we are missing the technology bus in India in a big way: 3G was launched in Japan 10 years ago.) So, among all phone-buyers at that time, I wanted to be the first to move into 3.5G phone ownership so I could reap the benefits of FMA by browsing away to glory while others less aware peer sideways in envy: on the bus, in the train etc. But it was not to be. I discarded my phone in Nov-2010, before 3G services saw the light of day. (And the slew of exciting 3G ads hit the air. Vodafone's 3G super hero, the Abhishek Bachans triplets...)
2. After much research and undertaking much logistical trouble, I bought the Barnes and Nobel Nook e-book reader for $259 in Jun-2010. I first bought the Sony reader for $189, found it crappy, went to a store and got it exchanged for a Nook. FMA: let me buy a Nook and enjoy reading digital content for years before others adopt it. And save some dough in the process: get those pdfs online. Well, a week after I bought it, Amazon slashes the rate of the Kindle, launches a non-3G wi-fi only version (which is what I would have wanted) for $129. There, FMA sure did save me some dough.
Anyhow, in one more attempt to finally exercise the FMA, I have now bought the HTC Desire Z. It is not yet available in any E-Zone/Chroma and I did some hard work: procured it from the HTC dealer in Mumbai (that's some first-moving, baby). Android 3.2, mega-screen, slide out QWERTY, all that jazz. And now, when finally 3G arrives in Mumbai, I hope to stylishly slide out my keyboard and type " I hereby finally exercise the first mover advantage". Or something like that.
Anyhow, moral of this long-winding oft-digressing tale: take quotations, maxims, aphorisms, with a pinch of salt. Invert them and see if that does that makes more sense.
Solution: A stitch in time saves nine.
Anyhow, moral of this long-winding oft-digressing tale: take quotations, maxims, aphorisms, with a pinch of salt. Invert them and see if that does that makes more sense.
Solution: A stitch in time saves nine.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
Seedy Weed Feed
"Speed kills, but weed chills. Take the safe trip."
This article below reports that an anti narcotics cell inspector was among five held in a rave raid.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2138787.ece
I sympathize with the inspector, poor chap. After all, he was a crack agent.
Anyhow, the cops could not do the raid alone, they enlisted the help of the locals. It was a joint operation.
This article below reports that an anti narcotics cell inspector was among five held in a rave raid.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article2138787.ece
I sympathize with the inspector, poor chap. After all, he was a crack agent.
Anyhow, the cops could not do the raid alone, they enlisted the help of the locals. It was a joint operation.
Labels: Witticisms
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