Finally A Blog

Janus, the two faced Roman god is here to preside over the transition from 2012 to 2013. His one face looks at the past year of trials and triumphs. His other face looks at the future of hope and hubris. Transitions are unequivocally important phases. We look at what was and wish it to last longer or rue at what weren't. We want the future to be better and brighter. I liken these transitions to Alice in Wonderland. An exit from a room is also an entry to a garden. If the past year saw you at the Mad Tea Party, the new year may introduce you to the Caterpillar. If the last year saw you small and afraid of the Red Queen, the new year may see you growing in stature and bring down her pack of cards. Wishing you all a happy new year, a year less violent, more stable and more emancipated.

Codes have been important vehicles of communication. Come to think of it, development of language started as codes: to denote food, habitat, enemy and later to keep track of money. Codes are exciting too. Sherlock Holmes cracked the codes of Dancing Men . Shibboleth  has been used by children and tribes alike to keep outsiders at bay. Some of this excitement  came by the way of marketers when they discovered QR Codes. Verily they stand for Quick Response Codes. Internet and Smartphones opened new channels for marketers, channels which were unbeknownst to them. These channels also opened up a divide between digital and print. Advertisers could have a great visual and bang on copy on hoardings, magazines and brochures, but to expect that the audience will go to a browser and type in url was a shot at the moon. Enter QR codes. In the aforementioned ad, a QR code lets a reader do multiple actions, such as: i)    It can take user to a web page, online video, documen...

Search engines are funny. Not funny like Groucho Marx or Guy Ritchie (though Google does seem to have a tongue in cheek). Their being funny lies in their uncanny similarity to humans when assessing the importance of others. You see a person's photographs with corporate top honchos, government high ranking officials and Dukes. What's the conclusion you draw? Let me guess: Since John Doe is linked to the important people, he must be important too! The rank of people one connects to is important in determining their rank in society. This is exactly how google ranks the webpages. If a page is linked to by other important pages, this page must be important too, goes the logic. Of course there are approximately 200 other parameters including content, relevance, optimization and tags, yet page ranking by the above method by far remains the heavy weight. As sometimes the people you thought were important turn out to be duds, so do the web pages.

This is not a movie review. Back in 2002, there was a film festival in Delhi, with many theaters showing movies from across the world. Amongst the movies shown, Bolivar I Am ( Bolivar Soy Yo) was a special one. The film's protagonist goes delusional, believing himself to be Simon Bolivar, following his dream of Gran Columbia. Who was Simon Bolivar? IF it wasn't for the history, he could have been a mythical hero, endowed with superpowers. He led Venezuela, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, Columbia and Bolivia to independence. He wrote constitutions, country is named after him,  currency is named after him, he is the ideologue for half of the South American continent- all in short 47 years. Why isn't there is more of him in the history books at school?