Author: Karthik S

I like to think of possibilities and believe in them.

Internet of things: Plug in your brain

~ Karthik S ~ Leave a comment

When I got my first mp3 player, the Sony 128Mb UT311A,

I was fascinated by how easily we could transfer music and carry it along. I was in the 1st year of my engineering course at that time.

It got me thinking about how I could increase the storage for such devices. So I thought of making a IDE-to-USB adapter which I could use to connect my IDE hard-disk to the mp3 player. The adapter would supply necessary power for the hard-disk and also fetch data from the disk. The player would process the data and play music.

Fast forward to the present, What if we could connect our brain to a music player which was connected to the internet? We’d just remember a song and just like how we start humming the song, the music player will play it in our ears. The player will search an online music dictionary, match the music pattern in our mind against a plethora of music data and then play out the song inside our ears.

Maybe we would just need to plug-in a speaker into our body for the music to play out loud for others to hear. How’s that for mood setting?

🙂

Know what you’re reviewing…

~ Karthik S ~ Leave a comment

I went on flipkart to buy a HDMI cable. The suppliers stacked up well against each other for competing rates but one of them seemed to have comparatively poor rating. So I wanted to check it out… and face a heap of irrelevant comments see this:

People don’t realize that they are reviewing the supplier and not the product.

For a supplier, you would expect to see details about packing, delivery matters, replacement or warranty issues, etc.

I initially just wanted to complain about what’s happening… but I guess I have a solution too.

Problem:

People don’t realize that they are reviewing the supplier because the review/rating interface is just the same as that of any other product purchased. So people end up reviewing the product and not supplier.

 

Build a relevant solution:

A product can be ranked mostly in the positive and less in negative.

A supplier can be ranked partly in the positive and mostly in the negative.

Option 1: Use stars to rank products and a colour coded slider to rank the supplier.

Option 2: Use a single set of starts for the products and multiple sets of stars for a supplier, each set of starts to indicate a dimension of the service provided (delivery/packing/after sales support, etc)

Roles and responsibilities of a team lead

~ Karthik S ~ Leave a comment

A friend recently pinged my school whatsapp group asking for general roles and responsibilities of a team lead. There was no info on what industry or job skill this position would target. This set my mind racing… Is a team lead as generic as a manager?

So I put down a few things I thought are generic enough. By the time I put down the last point, I realized that the team lead is just a mini manager.

What I’ve written is based purely on the different team leads I’ve worked with and the kind of team lead that I want to be.

I’d like to know your thoughts on what I’ve listed below.

NOTE: This list is only the “DO s” and not the “DON’T s” as the latter can be a veeeery long list.

 

Common:

Should have prior experience of delegating and managing work of at-least 3 people including self.

Roles:

  • Manage work distribution on basis of individual capacity
  • Manage availability of team members
  • Interact with senior management for escalation and team progress
  • Interact with other tams and client for daily work
  • Evaluate and rate team members on a peer level
  • Manage infrastructure and security requirements in absence of manager

Responsibilities:

  • Help team members complete work on time at the same time keeping in mind that they should work independently in future for similar tasks
  • Raise important and urgent matters with senior/upper management without delay
  • Set a good example for own team members and other team leads

*** THE END ***

 

An artist’s canvas

~ Karthik S ~ 3 Comments

How big is an artist’s canvas? What does it hold before the artist works on it? What happens to it in the end?

We were discussing cameras in office. The specs and their impact on photography. It occurred to me that the photo shows just the perspective of the person who captured it. To the untrained eye, it is a simple photo. For another photographer, every technical detail like light, subject, object, texture, focus, area, positioning maybe even ‘relevance to the times’ will be points to watch for. But it’s just a photo. The photo is truly great if it can convey the thoughts and emotions of the photographer at the time of taking the picture, to every person who sees it. Real photography happens in the mind of the photographer, the camera is just a tool to capture that thought and emotion. Add to that our digital tools at the camera and outside it, photographers have immense power to “edit” the content and present a powerful photo.

This holds true for every artist. To a dancer, his body and surroundings are the tools for expression. To a singer, his voice; a comedian, the times; a writer, his pen and to a politician, the opportunity.

Barring instances where movies are banned for bold depiction of ideas or reality, I think a filmmaker holds the best spot in terms of freedom of expression, scope for experimentation, duration and hues of the message. The filmmaker’s canvas is 3 hours long.

And then it hits me… these people don’t write on paper, dance on a stage, act in front of a camera or draw on a cloth…. They work on our mind. Our mind is their canvas. On our mind they draw, act, speak, sing, chisel. Contrary to popular belief, the canvas is not empty to start with. Like the scene in “Anbe Sivam” where Kamal sees an artwork in spilled food, artists just use the contents of our socially conditioned mind and try to make us see the inherent order within an all prevailing chaos. They bend the matrix of time, society and culture making infinitesimal changes in an infinite audience leading up to being the prime-movers of change (not necessarily progress).

While I’ve presented people and professions as being male, I believe there is very little that men do which women can’t do and viceversa.

God, grant me t…

~ Karthik S ~ Leave a comment

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.

Known as “The prayer of serenity” or “Serenity prayer”, this single prayer has a big impact on the way I think, talk and act.

I first heard it at school (Rashtriya Military School, earlier known as Bangalore Military School). It was read out frequently during the assembly. During the first few days of knowing it, I remember saying this aloud to myself when I was in doubt. Now it has become a silent prayer that runs through my blood shaping my nature and character.