to see a world in a grain of sand

On Wednesday, I accidentally bit on something hard (a stone in the rice? a piece of bone?) with a molar and a piece of the tooth broke off. This was actually a tooth that was surviving on fillings, so it is perhaps not surprising that it broke - on the other hand, I had been nursing it along with the occassional filling with no major mishaps, so losing a chunk of it was disappointing.

Later in the day I went to the dentist to get the piece removed (although it was broken, it was still lodged) and the dentist said that I’d have to go for a root filling. What is a root filling? It’s best explained by the following equation:

Root filling = Lots of money + Lots of time + Lots of pain = Lots of misery

“First they came” is a poem attributed to Pastor Marin Niemöller(1892-1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets. There are quite  a few variants of this, this is one of them:

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t mentally ill.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

To be quite honest, I wasn’t really following the progress of the Presidential elections in the U.S.A. (or to be more precise, the progress of the race for the Democratic Party nomination). I would be quite pleased to see a Democrat elected, but didn’t really know enough about either of the two candidates to form an opinion of who I preferred… especially as they were both running against tradition - one by being African-American, the other being a woman.

Be that as it may, I followed some links and ended up at the transcript of Hillary Clinton’s speech conceding the nomination to Obama, which impressed me enough (because it echoes much of my attitude to life) to post some excerpts here (emphasis mine):

To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all the way – especially the young people who put so much into this campaign – it would break my heart if, in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours. Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in. When you stumble, keep faith. When you’re knocked down, get right back up. And never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.

As we gather here today in this historic magnificent building, the 50th woman to leave this Earth is orbiting overhead. If we can blast 50 women into space, we will someday launch a woman into the White House.

Although we weren’t able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it. And the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time. That has always been the history of progress in America.

Think of the suffragists who gathered at Seneca Falls in 1848 and those who kept fighting until women could cast their votes. Think of the abolitionists who struggled and died to see the end of slavery. Think of the civil rights heroes and foot-soldiers who marched, protested and risked their lives to bring about the end to segregation and Jim Crow.Because of them, I grew up taking for granted that women could vote. Because of them, my daughter grew up taking for granted that children of all colors could go to school together. Because of them, Barack Obama and I could wage a hard fought campaign for the Democratic nomination. Because of them, and because of you, children today will grow up taking for granted that an African American or a woman can yes, become President of the United States.

So I want to say to my supporters, when you hear people saying – or think to yourself – “if only” or “what if,” I say, “please don’t go there.” Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward.Life is too short, time is too precious, and the stakes are too high to dwell on what might have been. We have to work together for what still can be.

All of you were there for me every step of the way. Being human, we are imperfect. That’s why we need each other. To catch each other when we falter. To encourage each other when we lose heart. Some may lead; others may follow; but none of us can go it alone. The changes we’re working for are changes that we can only accomplish together. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are rights that belong to each of us as individuals. But our lives, our freedom, our happiness, are best enjoyed, best protected, and best advanced when we do work together.

Presenting the world’s most advanced mouse: the Logitech MX Revolution, and I am now the proud owner of one of these sexy beasties

So, what is it that the MX Revolution has that ordinary mice do not?

• Hyper-fast Scrolling - A scroll wheel that automatically switches between precision mode (ratchet controlled for line-by-line scrolling) and free spin mode (high speed spinning for fast navigation through long documents)
• 4-way scrolling - one of the few mice in the world to allow horizontal scrolling (by applying sideways pressure on the wheel)
• A thumb-wheel - by default configured to flip through open windows. There’s also 2 thumb buttons, which by default are configured for forward/back for browsers
• Instant Search - highlight text, press the search button, and voila - it opens up in a search engine of choice
• Laser technology (not exactly cutting-edge anymore, but still a lot more precise than the LED technology found in most consumer grade mice)
• Wireless (just like you feel constricted by desktops once you experience the freedom of a laptop, wireless mice make you never want to deal with a mouse cord any more).
  • I would’ve preferred a Bluetooth mouse (Bluetooth laser mice do exist, although not with the kind of functionality of the MX Revolution… e.g. from Microsoft and Logitech)
  • Even with a USB receiver, would’ve been nice if Logitech offered the Nano Receiver on all their wireless products
• Rechargeable via Li-Ion battery. The advantage is that I don’t need to fiddle around with separate batteries. The disadvantage is that the bulky recharging dock only charges off an A/C supply - USB charging cable would’ve been beautiful.
• Of course, it goes without saying that all the controls are configurable - for example the thumb wheel can be used for zooming.

I was chairing the X-Con 2008 of AIESEC in Sri Lanka last weekend (have some mixed emotions about that - maybe worth blogging about) and one of the sessions included a video of Mohammed Yunus (of Grameen Bank fame), where he said (excerpt from his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006):

To me poor people are like bonsai trees. When you plant the best seed of the tallest tree in a flower-pot, you get a replica of the tallest tree, only inches tall. There is nothing wrong with the seed you planted, only the soil-base that is too inadequate. Poor people are bonsai people. There is nothing wrong in their seeds. Simply, society never gave them the base to grow on. All it needs to get the poor people out of poverty for us to create an enabling environment for them. Once the poor can unleash their energy and creativity, poverty will disappear very quickly.

I find this to be an interesting analogy to organizational culture (one of three focus areas for Unleash Talent) - you can have the best seeds (talented people), but if they are constrained in a flower pot (in a poor organizational culture), they will never grow into a tall tree (will never produce exceptional results).

It has been said of culture that explaining to someone about culture is like explaining to a fish that it lives in water. Alternately, does a bonsai tree know that it is in a flower-pot?

Recently I received a message on Facebook from M.O., a colleague from University:

hay…. if U need chilies for a Omlet…..now you know where to go isnt it.

WTF? If I need to buy chilies, for an omelet or anything else, I know where to get it… but I don’t buy chilies (have bought chili powder, and have bought bell peppers and capsicum, but never was into the kind of cooking that needed chilies.) So, I asked him what it was all about. He replied:

hear that U bought one chili from Cargills for an Omlet

Which is quite an interesting deviation from the real story… so let me put the record straight.

Prasad, my former housemate, had bought a few chillies (I guess 50 g) because he wanted to make an omelette. He used one, and the rest went bad (we didn’t have a fridge then). So I asked him why he bought so many when he only needed 1, and he said it was because he couldn’t buy just 1 chili.

My argument was that, in a supermarket, it should be possible to buy 1 chili if we wanted to (they weigh it, calculate the price, and you pay for it). To prove the point, the next time I was in the supermarket, I asked them if they would sell me just one chili, and they said they would.

I never took them up on the offer, as I never had a need for chili (one or more). However, I did buy one of something (tomato? onion?) that cost Rs. 3.

An interesting twist to the tale is that, a few weeks later, I wanted to buy 1 lime. When I took it to the place where they weigh the food, they told me that

“It’s not worth to weigh 1 lime - you can take it for free!”

Picture says it all

By some coincidence, within the last 2 days, 5 people have asked me my travel plans for this year! Since this is anyway something on my mind these days (visas, visas…), here it is:

• Egypt in August. The International Olympiad in Informatics will be held in Cairo from August 16th to 23rd. Depending on travel schedules I may be there for a few extra days before/after as well.
• Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania in September. Paul (ex-AIESEC intern in Sri Lanka, the “Original Malu”) is getting married in Timisoara on September 13th. My plan is to fly to Vienna and travel by train/bus from there. Intend to spend time in Vienna, Bratislava, and Budapest (maybe other cities, if there is a reason: you?) before/after the wedding.

So, in case there’s a possibility to meet up in Egypt or Austria/Slovakia/Hungary/Romania, let me know so we can work something out

BTW one of my KPIs is to have visited at least as many countries than my age - currently I’m ahead of schedule (34 countries vs. 31 years), so I basically need to visit a new country every year to sustain that. If things go according to schedule, I will be adding 2 new countries this year: Egypt (my first foray into the Dark continent, although not actually to the dark part of it) and Slovakia.

I remember reading a joke that was supposedly an example of the kind of thinking that led to the USA losing the war in Vietnam:

Referring to a military airfield located in the middle of nowhere, a General was asked “Why do we need this airfield?”. The answer, “we need the airfield to supply the military base there”.

“But why do we need a military base there?”

“We need the military base to protect the airfield.”

I very much doubt if this story is true, but I recently came across an even more stupid example of a self-serving agenda: My laptop has a variety of “automatic update” processes running - Microsoft does something for Windows and Office, Adobe takes care of its own family of programs, etc. And then there is “InstallShield Update Manager” which checks for updates every month or so. Today, out of idle curiosity, I decided to check what exactly this is updating, and I found:

The only thing the Update Manager was updating was itself. Duh.

Yes - you read it correct! The Government of Sri Lanka says I’m a Change Agent. And it’s issued on an internationally accepted medium - my passport!

More seriously… my job title at work really is Change Agent. Which is really cool when you consider the fact that I was nearly 7 years in AIESEC and just about everything we did was about producing Change Agents.

Of course, I know that having the title Change Agent wasn’t what we meant in AIESEC, but it is still immensely smug to have it as a title, and having it on my passport is way more cool than just having it on my business cards.

Incidentally, it’s quite normal to list your profession on your passport in Sri Lanka, so all I had to do was to submit a letter from work confirming that I was employed as a Change Agent when I applied for a new passport (the old one had run out of blank pages). I doubt if the people at the Immigration Dept. even understood what Change Agent meant - they probably thought it was something on the lines of Sales Agent, Insurance Agent, etc.!