Measurement That We Need To Remember Today

There have been long periods of time in our younger years where we have spent 3X times trying to remember those measurements and figures in Mathematics. I still can vividly remember those conversion tables for land, let me recollect: 10 hectares would be equal to 1,00,000 square meters if I am correct.

In fact I am correct (thanks to my dependable source: Google). Now these terminologies do not make sense to anyone in today’s term. Since in today’s evaluation 10 hectares would automatically calculate you into the Billionaires club and probably if you are lucky would also have a few cases of land grabbing against you.

So in order to make the present day generations to be happy, I am not going to go over all those conversions which are accessible to all children, including those babies which are born with a Silver iPhone. I am going to list some of the important measurement in our day-to-day life currently which is not captured in any CSBE/ICSG/Matriculation syllabus.

Before even starting, there are many funny measurements already in our system, take for example: Helen (Guys, I am referring to Helen to Troy here) is the measure of beauty, MegaFonzie is the unit for measuring the coolness of an object, Thaum: the atomic unit for measuring magic (Thanks to Terry Pratchett for this one), Warhol the unit of FAME or HYPE and finally for the latest example Wheaton: the unit for measuring the number of twitter followers relative to a celebrity… et all … ETC

I know these are of no use to an ordinary person (I am directly referring to you readers), so let me try and list a few that are really needed by you to measure on a daily basis.

SCAMPER: This is a unit to measure the amount of money siphoned from the public domain to a private account – in Congress terms BAU (Business As Usual) or in Media terms a SCAM. Currently Congress has 1.3 Mega Scampers per week and going strong by the hour.

BROKEN ARROW: This is a unit to measure the number of failed attempts by an investigating agency to nail a politician in a blatant violation such as Money laundering, Day light killings, disproportionate wealth et all (Have to stop here, the list is too big). The current topper for India is CBI with 9.8 Broken Arrows closely followed by 7CAG with 7.1 and at the bottom of the table is the “Jan Lokayuktha” with 1.414 broken arrows.

BLUBBER: This is a unit mainly for women or the soap opera watchers. This is the unit to measure the amount of tears that flow in 24 minutes. The current record is 3.2 litres per 24 minutes which comes from watching either “Chellame” or “Thendral”.

DIMPLE: The unit to measure the distance between the screen and the person when Jennifer Lopez is beamed on the screen. The maximum number usually comes with the college students. The person who has the minimum distance is evaluated very year and given a prized title of “The DIMPLETON”. This record changes very fast and is current at 23 nanometres, soon would be broken as you are reading this line.

BLAH: The unit to measure the exact amount of nonsense that a person can deliver per minute. Of course to measure it one needs great amount of patients and a good roll of cotton balls. The greater the value of this measurement would lead you to be titled “The SHAH of BLAH”.

WHINES: This little measurement is found mostly with husbands who display this activity daily in their office on issues which occurred yesterday in their personal life. Usually a normal whining person would display 36 whines per hour. The more henpecked the guy, the lower the whine value. Also the guy with lower whine value has inversely proportional blah values for their partners. The way nature maintains the entropy.

COUCH: This unit of measurement is predominantly used for the retired population and other obese persons who show no tendency to disturb their inertia. This measurement mainly focuses on the gambit of subject topics in which the person claims to be an expert and delivers expert comments. So the higher the scope, higher the value obtained. Usually a person would earn one couch for every 10 topics that you claim expertise.

DRONE: This measures the amount of modulation that a person makes while delivering live commentary of any sporting event. The higher the value, lower the percentage of listeners you get. You earn one DRONE for every 3 TVs in mute during the live broadcast. The current leaders in this category are shared between RJ.Shashtri and Rameez Raja (Tied at 99 Drones).

EBULLIENT: The measure of the time period between the ending of one game and the start of the next for example Angry Birds or Temple Run. The unit of this measurement is usually in milliseconds and the current generation of young kids are tough to beat.

CACOPHONY: This measures the variation in the pitch of the voice between the expected and the delivered. So the variation is exponentially proportional to the discord. This measurement is highly used for all the reality singing shows on TV, especially found in the judges’ panel. Malgudi Subha holds the current record at 7.8 units

MELEE: This unit is measured on the amount of fights/disputes that arise in a day between the siblings in a house. The fights may range from sharing the pillow to killing each other with knives (whichever occurs first). Usually we earn 1 mille-Melee if we can start 10 fights within 30 minutes time frame.

DUNG: Is the amount of contamination that a person can litter within one square feet of space. Till today 2.54 Kgs of dirt per square feet equals 1 HectaDungs and 10 HectaDungs equals 1 Dung. Government agencies believe that Bangalore tops the chart with Chennai (aided by Coovum) is close by. Usually there is no use in measuring this matter since at this concentrated level of dirt; there is no way any habitat possible near this place.

GLUTTON: This unit measure the capacity of the stomach’s intake within a stipulated time frame. You are evaluated at 1 Glutton if you can consume 3.142 jumbo meals within 42 minutes time span. One obvious observation is that higher the glutton value, thinner is your purse and heavier is the risk of “Death before the next Lunch”.

How Managers Spend Their Daily Time

X+1 Syndrome

[Borrowed from the Internet]

When an Indian professional becomes a 'Non-Resident Indian' in the United States, he soon starts suffering from a strange disease. The symptoms are a fixture of restlessness, anxiety, hope and nostalgia. The virus is a deep inner need to get back home. Like Shakespeare said, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." 

The medical world has not coined a word for this malady. Strange as it is it could go by a stranger name, the "X + 1" syndrome. [To read this blog fully: http://cs.ucsb.edu/~koc/favs/x+1.html ]

[End of Borrowed Material]

So why blame only the NRI (Non-Reliable Indians), those who are living in India also exhibit a lot of this X+1 syndrome, which is the topic for this week.

You can easily identify these people who are prone to procrastination – their only sole motto is to postpone anything which can be done tomorrow to day-after-tomorrow or cut a long story short behave like Garfield.

Some of the early symptoms that you are tending to procrastinate are:

Quitting chain smokers: The famous last words of all chain smokers – “This is the last one, I will quit after this”. It applies for all values of x in x=x+1;

Health conscious pot-bellied person: “I am going to start exercises from tomorrow; today is the last jumbo meals which I will have”.

Milkman/Paper Boy: “Sir, you can trust my promptness, you can see it from tomorrow”

Politicians: “This bill will be passed in an effective manner in the next parliament session”

Driving without license guys: “Look sir, take this Rs.100. I promise that I won’t commit this mistake again.”

Backbenchers in College: “If not this semester, there is always the next da machi”

Software Quality Person: “We have incorporated many measures which will help improve the quality of the deliverables from next release”

Software developer: “The team will ensure that we will review the entire code base for any leaks, known defects during the next integration”

Software Manager: “We have always been strictly adhering to the process; will consciously follow the process guidelines with greater focus for the coming projects.”

Delivery Heads: “This is just the beta delivery we shall have it fixed in the final build”

Husband: “I will stop watching cricket from the next series”

Wife: “Watch me from next month, will run this family within the granted budget”

Most Overused Resume Words

Come July it is the time for appraisals in your company and for me it is time to start the recruitment drive for my team. Every year I scan through a high number of bio-data with all adjectives put in between those power resume words. In fact every resume that I scan would in total exceed the skill sets of Kernighan, Ritchie and Stoutstrup put together with.

I would like to question the very thought as to why should I use those words when both the parties (receiver and sender) know that there is not an iota of truth in it. Why can’t I just send an email stating “Dear Employer, I want a job and I know to use CTRL-C and CTRL-V and sometimes CTRL-ALT-DEL.” This is perfectly matching my team’s requirements. Why should I go through a complete grueling session called “Inter-View” and so called “Technical Discussion” to select few guys who by the next July would be retyping their curriculum vitiate.

In my view, the entire HR department can be done away with, and save those money to buy new hardware for the project engineers to work and create some revenue for the company. So with this context let me take you through some of those over-abused words that you may find in the next bio-data that you get through the referrals.

1.       Creative: Why is that every engineer or a MCA in this planet is creative? Or why is it necessary for someone to be really creative to work in Mainframes or in embedded platform? I don’t think the company is going to pay you more than the others just because you are creative. In fact for me, if a guy is really creative he would not be in software. End of story.

2.       Effective: How does one define what is effectiveness or how am I to find out if you really are? I can guess from the way you draw the block diagram of a DVD player if you are capable or not. Even my 4 year old kid knows more than me on how to effectively use Blu-ray player, so effectiveness is not that good a thing to posses.

3.       Track record: This word is purely used since it cannot be validated even if the person gave me 1 year to verify. One really does not know what record is the person talking about and what track has he accomplished something. Think why should a proven track record person change? Do you think the Australian cricket team would take Harbajan when he has a track of proven records [of not taking wickets when needed]?

4.       Motivated: I would like to know what he is motivated to. Obviously it is for money but the lies that flow from the person’s mouth is a treat to watch. If everyone in my team was motivated and had good track record, then there is no scope for me [Project Manager].

5.       Innovative: For sure I would not even look beyond this word if a person as used it in his resume. If he was so innovative, why is he still using an age old medium to showcase his skills? I would rather recruit a guy who flashes an SMS via his iPhone with the text message “24 Lakhs PA + Car + Perks, 2 months paid leave. Accept or Reject” or “I am ready to accept salary or you ready to pay it?” These type of guys are really innovative ...

6.       Problem solving: My perception is that any new entrant into a running system would be the problem creator. If that being the case, how could the same person be the problem solver? I do not want to talk about these guys who are fit for nothing; the only problem they can solve is how you can close down the project before its actual date. If a person cannot solve his problem in the previous company, how is he going to do it in mine?

7.        Dynamic: Software work to my knowledge is a purely sedentary job and I wonder what I would do with a dynamic person? I may have to keep running from pillar to post to locate this person for the project status. I would like people who are stationary and sloppy so that I can mentor them and grow my career in the organisation. People who are dynamic are not aligning to my interests.

8.       Results-oriented: I do not really understand what this phrase means? Is there someone who would do anything without the knowledge of the end result or wanting to achieve some result, I have not seen one yet expect our current Prime Minister?

9.       Team player: What does one mean by this? If he is a team player, then why is he applying for a new job all alone, without informing his team? If this is what team player means, I am sure we can run the project without persons like him.

10.   Responsible For: All of us are in the same understanding I suppose. I thought of using the same page [another abused word in IT] but restricted myself. The understanding that you are responsible for our work items. Is this an extra-ordinary trait that you were responsible for high-level design, improving quality etc. I thought it was a basic expectation from the management that all faults are yours.

11.   Extensive experience: My understanding of experience was that it would come only if you were exposed to something extensively. Many resources would say they have worked extensively in cutting edge technology which was released only 6 months back. God only knows how they were trained on subject before it is known.

12.   Communication skills: The final nail in his coffin, communication skills I thought was written and oral in my days, but now-a-days SMS and short emails are known as communication skills. To talk to the team member sitting next to you, you have to call him on his mobile since you cannot communicate face-to-face. One exception is if the team member is of the opposite sex.

So the final conclusion that I have made is to search for these words and directly thrash the profiles and look for someone who is creatively innovative, exposed and future oriented. Of course there is one exception for me too. [If you can catch my drift]