Disenfranchised!

They say the educated middle class don't vote. Well, at least one of them wanted to, but couldn't, because his name wasn't "on the list", in spite of applying within the deadline.

All of you should have checked your name in the list, says the Chief Election Officer of Karnataka. Indeed sir, it's all our fault sir.

We pay our taxes, fill out umpteen forms to get our names into lists, and then civil servants screw up. And whom do they blame? Themselves? Perish the thought.

The Hatter is disenfranchised, seriously displeased, and yes, Mad. But don't worry, he'll soon settle back into his normal cynicism.

And then you can tell him he cannot complain about things if he didn't vote.

More Fake IPL Nicknames

New nicknames in Fake IPL player's latest post

• Shakespeare - Aakash Chopra, of "chaste" blogging fame
• Ganji Hangar - Sanjay Bangar
• Sandy Nickle - Andy Bichel
• Sheeghra Patan - Yousuf Pathan :) (would've been a better name for his bro Irfan given his career graph)
• Big Mac - Matthew Hayden (of course)

I'm now inclined to believe that it's Ranadeb Bose, if at all it's a cricketer. Fake IPL player has just the right amount of vitriol for the alleged fast bowlers who were selected ahead of RDB for the Indian team a few seasons ago - Ajit "Kaan Moolo" Agarkar, The unprintable nickname formerly known as Sreesanth, and the like. Not that we mind, of course.

Thank FSM for Fake IPL Player!

More:

Boy George - Joy Bhattacharya
Gilli Danda - Ashok Dinda
Big/Little Sister - The Sisters Shetty
Style Bhai - Murali Kartik

Still More

Sticky Something - Ricky Ponting
Buddhiman Baba - Wriddhiman Saha
Bubaan - Arindam Ghosh (or is it Moises Henriques?)
Arnold - Romesh Powar :)
Lady Jaya - Mahela Jayawardane

You can't make these things up ...

Apparently, the Microsoft surface computer comes with ... a keyboard and mouse, which you actually need!

Marginal Cost

Matthew Yglesias makes a point about marginal cost of information, and how it should affect pricing of online content. His point? Marginal cost for a widely read article should be near zero, so should its price.

Incidentally, somebody made a similar point about software a while back.

Hefty prices being charged for content are unsustainable, as traditional publishing giants trying to extend their former pricing models to the net are finding out the hard way. Microsoft is facing a similar situation as free web-based software tools threaten its pricing model.

So, if you can't charge a hefty price for content (or software), how do you survive? As a provider, your marginal cost is near zero, but not zero. If you serve content completely for free, your success will drive you to bankruptcy in a jiffy. So, you need to find a way to make a marginal amout of money with every incremental serving of content or software.

There are two commonly known (read, known to the Hatter) ways in which a "near-zero" price can be charged. One is the Google Way, where a zero price is charged, and advertising is used to gain minor incremental revenue per view. It works for Google, and a lot of others, but is unappealing to many. Selling ads seems so plebian, so 20th century Old Media.

The other is micropayments - allowing a very small (fractions of a cent) price to be charged efficiently. Micropayments have been historically ineffective, and criticized as fundamentally flawed. Attempts to refute the criticism, and make the concept work, have mostly failed.

There has to be a better way to do it!

Who is Fake IPL Player?

While IPL 2009 is slowly turning into a (literally) damp squib, the Hatters thoughts turn to a most singular blog has made its appearance - Fake IPL Player.

Who's the culprit? The Kolkata Knight Riders (their name took longer to write than their average batting stint lasts) have strenuously denied that Fake IPL Player is one of theirs, which does raise suspicion that he just might be a player and an insider after all. Methinks they do protest too much.

But, all said and done, he or she is probably a journalist, letting out all the gossip that staid editors and libel laws won't let him or her publish.

But, leaving reality aside for a moment, what if one tries to deduce the identity of the player believing the claims on the blog, in the fashion of Sci-Fi fans (or theologians, for that matter) making reasoned arguments based on their fictional canon?

The game is afoot ...

Let's see, what clues do we have, my dear Watson?

1. He is a Ranji player, and somewhat of an all-rounder, and a very good fielder
2. He grew up in Kolkata (or some other place also referred to as Cal.)
3. One of the opening bowlers is his state-mate - either Ashok Dinda or Ishant "little John" Sharma.
4. He hasn't met Shikhar Dhawan before the IPL.
5. One of his former school team-mates plays for the Bangalore Royal Challengers
   
6. He is not a Ganguly-camper
7. He does not think much about Sreesanth (well, not too many do)

From clues 3 and 4, it would seem he plays for Bengal (since if Ishant were his state-mate, he'd have met Shikhar Dhawan , another Delhi-ite) before.

Let's see, the Bengal players in KKR are (according to Wikipedia)

1. Debabrata Das
2. Wriddhiman Saha
3. Ashok Dinda
4. Laxmi Ratan Shukla
5. Sourav Ganguly

Saha is ruled out, being a wicketkeeper batsman rather than someone who "bowls a bit". Ganguly is of course, ruled out. Ashoke Dinda is ruled out, ignoring the pathological case of him being his own state-mate. That leaves Lakshmi Ratan Shukla (Ranji Veteran, bit of an all-rounder) and Debabrata Das (bit of an all-rounder, but a Ranji greenhorn). Hmmm...

Ok, now clue number 5 comes in handy. Looking at the Royal Challengers profiles, the only stand-out Bong seems to be Shreevats Goswami - 19 years of age. Das is 21. Shukla is 27.

Someone's out to frame Debabrata Das, eh? Who's even heard of Debabrata Das???

And then again, if one ignores all those clues as deliberate misdirections, one cricketer who's known to be a decent blogger, and short in stature is Aakash Chopra. Incidentally, he's playing for Kolkata Knight Riders. Hmm...

The rain still falls ... I might as well go to sleep instead of trying to play Sherlock Holmes

Update: More here. This feller refuses to go away!

PS: for those who missed the allusion - Fake Steve Jobs was a blogosphere mega-hit a while ago.

Epilogue(or Prologue to the future?): So FIP has created a video, purportedly his shadow talking. He now claims to be an "insider", which means he's likely to be a journalist. He claims to have grown up in Delhi, and loves Kolkata, enough to utter the odd phrase in well accented, probably native, though not 100% natural Bong. Probashi? Possibly. The liberal use of "ch****a kaat diya/kat gaya" is interesting. That particular phrase, though not the obscenity that it centres on, is a Delhi staple.

So, my dear Watson, we shall pursue all Delhi-Bong journalists with a vengeance. The game is afoot again! But is FIP throwing another red herring our way to lead us astray? ....

Chinese Regionalism

Regionalism, it would seem, isn't completely unknown in China. In spite of the best efforts of the Communist Party, it does show its face once in a while.

I consider the Mandarin policy as one of China's practical successes, though it usually provokes a lot of hand-wringing. China has achieved a remarkable flexibility and portability of the labour force due to the fact that everyone speaks Mandarin to a good degree. In boom cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, the language in common use is Mandarin. Apparently, that's leading to some underground resentment.

It's not fair that the Chinese escape the ills that we in India have got to battle. How do you say mannina maga (or for that matter marathi manoos) in Shanghainese, Comrade?

Random IPL epihpany of the day

Kevin Pietersen - $1.5m.
Jesse Ryder - $160K.
Robin Uthappa - bartered for Zaheer Khan.
The look on Shane Warne's face when his team was down at 47/7 - Priceless!

I don't mean to be cynical, but ...

Capt. G R Gopinath of Air Deccan fame (infamy for some) is standing for election in Bangalore Central South. Interesting to say the least. He has blogged on IBNLive explaining why he chose to stand.

Noble intentions, without a doubt:

I am convinced that today our greatest need is to rid society of communalism and casteism; eradicate corruption and bring in good governance for development and fulfill the ideals on which this nation was formed. I want to make a political and developmental platform which will represent all communities and all religions. I want to drive my vision for India, for Karnataka and for Bangalore on a foundation which has two wheels of change - social harmony and good governance. These are the two pillars of a strong nation. Right governance will not only ensure communal harmony but also the right policies and systems which support the economy and citizens without having to resort to bribes and sycophancy. The opportunity for a happier future for us lies in getting these very fundamentals of our social fabric right.

My, my, words that are music to my ears, most definitely.

But, Capt. Gopinath, just how are you going to do all that as an Independent MP? With no major influence on government policy, just how are you going to remake the political and administrative fabric of the country? That's just a bit unlikely, wouldn't you agree.

I am asked time and again as to what change can an Independent bring about? Well, we have to begin somewhere; Gandhiji brought about a change in an era where there were no modes of communication but every clarion call of his for non-violence brought scores of supporters on the streets and one of the biggest movements in history was created.

The thought of Capt. Gopinath bringing Gandhi-esque change by his fiery speeches in Parliament about communal harmony and corruption is quite chuckle-worthy.

And I assure the reader that my not-so-great experiences with his alleged airline in the past has nothing to do with the scepticism here ... heh.

But we shall give him the benefit of doubt. There are too few who even deserve that.

What They Teach You At Harvard Business School

With a title like that, how could I not buy the book?

And to whom may we credit with that piece of wit that induced the Hatter to part with three hundred and ninety five of the best Indian Government coinage? Philip Delves Broughton, impeccably English and the former Paris bureau chief of the Daily Telegraph, veteran of 9/11 reporting, innumerable interviews of French Government officials (which one presumes was harder), and now of HBS - having received one the venerable institution's degrees of 2006 vintage - is the man.

And the book? It's not half bad, being a quite interesting outsider's perspective on one of the pillars of the American business system - playing-fields-of-Eton equivalents for the battles of Wall Street one might say. Unfortunately, as we now know, Wall Street wasn't playing with a straight bat.

Reading the book, one is tempted to say one kind of realizes why. Almost in boot-camp style, the future Masters of the Universe are loaded up with stress up to the point where they're, quite conveniently, at their most mentally vulnerable. In addition to providing HBS 'products' with a formidable analytical toolkit for addressing business problems, it would seem that the experience feeds them with more than a little bit of groupthink and celebration of the trivial while demagnetizing their moral compass just that little bit.

You could do much worse than read this book, so pick it up when you need some entertaining and interesting fare.

Link to the book on amazon.co.uk. It seems the book is called, "Ahead of the Curve" in the US of A. Copyright issues or stereotypical humour issues? Probably the former.

Ketchup

Good Morning, Dominos Pizza, would you like to try our gzzzmmgbbzzz?

No thanks, I'd like to order two medium pepperoni pizzas and a side of garlic bread please.

Would you like ketchup with that sir?

Sure.

We charge one rupee per packet sir.

What? In addition to your hideously overpriced pizza that I shouldn't be buying anyway?

Yes sir. How many packets would you like?

Aren't you worried just a wee bit about, you know, possibly alienating your customers by this sort of thing? Don't you worry that the incremental cash you'll make with this is not worth even a one percent drop in orders due to irritated customers switching loyalites?

No sir.

Good, that's all right then.

...

Look on the bright side, at least, now I know where all the unemployed Wall Street geniuses went ...