Neutral zone now at Borivali / Dahisar

Post the AC conversion of some part of the suburban Western Railway line, the neutral section is now located between Borivali and Dahisar. The WCAMs (AC - DC dual locos) now lower down the AC pantograph at this section, and raise the DC one before the end of the neutral section. Here's a video from YouTube that captures this moment. Note the rear pantograph being dropped before the front one is raised. Also, note the boys passing by are oblivious to why this filming is taking place - probably not knowing what is happening.

Shweeb: cycle your way in a capsule

Google's 10^100 project had invited people to submit ideas that could change people's lives. One of the chosen entries was Shweeb in the transportation section. The below YouTube video shows how much fun it can be to commute to work. Of course, the below ride is currently only deployed at a park in New Zealand.

Microsoft Kinect

Recently attended a Microsoft session where they touted the yet-to-be-released Kinect game controller. The video at YouTube about this commercial says it all. Quite impressive.

Train station indicators show platform directions

One of the main problems (complaints) that (new) Mumbai suburban commuters often have is to know which side of the car the platform would be on. In a crowded train, knowing this can immensely help a commuter by informing the commuter well in advance which direction s/he should proceed. Too often, commuters new to Mumbai train travel / stations have to ask other commuters which side the platform would arrive. Although in most cases the sides on which the platforms appear are fixed, in certain cases the trains do arrive at platforms other than the ones they usually do. This sometimes results in a shift of the platform side. A sudden surge of people from one side to the other ensues, and this is a big hassle in a crowded train. Commuters hanging out the doorway are usually the ones to spot that the train is changing its tracks, and hence also notice the shift in platforms. They announce this to fellow commuters, who then head to the other door.

Some years ago the local rakes (especially the MRVC ones) have been fitted with a LED display that displays the next station as well as the final destination of the train. However, it was only recently that I noticed that these displays also show an arrow indicating the platform direction. I also double checked to make sure that these arrows are not present in all the indicators. It maybe a part of a trial or part of a new rollout.

Here are two photographs (sorry for the poor quality - mobile cam) from a recent train trip. Note that the indicator for Diva is on the left, whereas Kopar (a relatively new station) is on the right.

 

Hope this is installed in all the locals, and that it functions correctly.

Thoughts of a car finally hit the brain

After years of not wanting to own a car, thoughts of have now started emerging in my brain. All these years I couldn't even differentiate between the various models. But a learning session with a co-worker now makes sure that I know a Maruti Swift from a Hyundai i10, or for that matter what is a VXI, ZXI or a VDI.

One of the things I realized I was missing out was on being able to travel with family on weekends. That meant that I was missing out on visiting places on the outskirts of Mumbai. I am also close to being convinced that the Maruti Swift is a broad compact car (it has the same width as a Maruti Swift Dzire) which means it can accommodate 5 people with ease.

I have driven extensively in the USA, including dense cities such as Boston. This experience also includes a 10 hour drive from Massachusetts to Akron, Ohio. I was not sure whether I could drive in the crazy Mumbai traffic. But if the intention is to drive on the weekends, then this is not that big a problem. Plus a realization that if others could, why couldn't I.

I am also clear that the first car should be a pre-owned car - one that should be ready to receive scratches and dents - a common experience for a new driver in Mumbai.

Science experiments on YouTube

Read elsewhere that some schools in the UK / USA are planning to introduce the Apple iPad for their students. Apart from the general replacement for paper notebooks, what caught my attention was the claim that the  students could actually view dangerous or hard-to-reproduce science experiments on the iPad.

For some interesting science experiments on YouTube, once just has to search for those keywords. But here's a sampler:

• The top 10 science experiments on YouTube
• Sodium in a trash can of water
• Rocket powered by Diet Coke and Mentos

IRCTC website timings changed for online railway reservation

It seems that sometime in July / August 2010 IRCTC has changed the timings for its online railway reservation system. Whereas earlier, the reservation was not allowed from 23:30 night to the next day early morning, the reservation is now closed only for a period of 1 hour (from 23:30 to 00:30).

The 90th day reservation timings are different: That is, if a ticket is booked on the 90th day (the first day advance reservation begins) from the travel date, the reservation only begins at 8 a.m. This is only for the 90th day advance booking.

The new timings are especially convenient for people wanting to book tickets from another timezone (read NRIs), but I think it would put the people booking at the reservation counters at a huge disadvantage. The counters open only at 8 a.m.

I recently tried booking a ticket during the peak Christmas vacation. 37 seconds after 8:00, I was already wait listed.

Dabbling with iPad

Had the chance to take an Apple iPad for a spin. The FSF (Free Software Foundation), of course, is against such "closed" devices as reasoned out in this article "iPad is iBad for freedom".

The iPad out-of-the-box itself is a pretty useless device. If you have a WiFi connectivity, then you could use it as a device for browsing. But a very limited number of useful apps are actually installed on it when you pick it out of the box. As soon as I could, I installed a large number of whatever free apps I could onto the iPad. Most of the iPhone apps can also be installed onto the iPad, but by default they show up using a smaller part of the screen (iPhone size). There's a control (called "2X") that you could click to make the app full screen, but then the images seem to be a bit pixelized.

Only those apps that are mentioned as being "designed for iPad" appear displayed correctly. Thus, even though an app maybe available for both iPhone and iPad, only those that say "designed for iPad" are actually the ones that appear more pleasing on the iPad.

Most of the free apps are games. And tons of games I did install. Some of the games were actually pretty cool. Most of these games had a free version for certain basic levels, and the more advanced levels would require buying  the games.

There were useful informative apps too. Such as the ones that described the various yoga poses.

I only had the iPad for a few days, and it did seem that Apple had finally hit the sweet spot between the portability and the usability. It could also make for a good device for kids - especially on long boring journeys. I could well imagine this being the replacement for those puzzle books that people buy just before a journey.

The iPad has not yet been launched in India, but even if it does, it would be priced quite high to be a casual entertainment device.

Easy computations for the new Mumbai autorickshaw fare

The old tariff for Mumbai's autorickshaw was quite easy to  compute mentally. At least for the regular fare - the late-night fare (after midnight was a different matter), but at least it was easy with the regular fare. So a meter reading of 3.40 could be translated into the fare by multiplying the meter reading by 10  and subtracting 1. Thus, 3.40 on the meter reading would be (3.40 x 10) - 1 = Rs. 33. That's it. No need to carry copies of tariff cards.

The new tariff which came into effect some time in 2010 is a bit more difficult to compute mentally. The official computation is as follows: Rs. 11 for the first 1.00 on the meter, and Rs. 13 for every 1.00 thereafter. A little common sense (read maths) shows that it is still possible to translate this to a formula that can be used to compute the fare mentally. Of course, one needs to know the 13 multiplication tables quite well.

Here is how I do it. Once you get the hang of it, its possible to do it quite fast. I usually try and pronounce the fare before the rickshaw driver can check his tariff card. A couple of rickshaw drivers were surprised by the accuracy of my calculations. I try to practice this quite often now just to check my computation.

The rule is quite simple: Multiple the meter reading by 13 and subtract 2.

• So a meter reading of 3.00 would be (3 x 13) - 2 = 37. And so on.
• Things start to get tricky when we do not have whole meter readings. For example, 3.70. Its still doable, but requires some addition as well. Here's how  to do it:
• First multiply the non-factional  part by 13. This gives 3 x 13 = 39
• Then, multiply the fractional part by 13 and divide by 10. This gives 7x 13/10 = 9.1
• Add both rounding off the resultant. 39+9.1 = approx 48 (rounded off)
• Subtract 2 to get the fare. This gives 48 -2 = 46

Try it out.

Toys and stuff ordered

After regularly keeping track of products at ThinkGeek's webshop for years now, I finally decided to take the plunge and order a few items - some simple toys - those that fascinate both older kids (the ones with gray hair) as well as normal kids. At my first attempt, I was quite taken aback by their order verification process - and in fact, I canceled my order. However, a little bit of Googling revealed that this was a normal process. And after mustering courage, I ordered again. And went through their order verification process.

Of course, I am paying through my nose for the delivery to India. Even though these might be available in India, I did not have the patience to spend time looking where it might be available. It made sense to pack as many items into a single shipment as possible, since the DHL Express shipment to India is itself about USD 35.

And, as some study recently pointed out, online shopping probably results in more environmental hazard than brick-and-mortar shopping. So, the items manufactured in China go to the USA only to be shipped back to India (via an airplane).

It remains to be seen what shape the items arrive in. A couple of decades ago, anything shipped to India had the reputation of being opened up and flicked at the arrival port. Not to mention taxed to death.

Onto the interesting items actually: Apart from a few silly items, one of them is a mini remote-controlled drone  and the other a doodle track car. Check out the interesting videos here and here.

And since DHL offers a web-based online tracking mechanism, its quite easy to see where the shipment is at any point in time.

Can't wait to get those items however worthless they may be.

Amazon.com amazes

I had this question first about 3 years ago, and its still unanswered. Does Amazon.com deliver to India? They sure have software development facilities here in Hyderabad (and maybe 'Luru), and they sure conduct campus recruitment from Indian universities, but it beats the hell out of me to know they do not have a local Indian warehousing from where the items could be shipped.

The story I had heard then is still the same now: They do ship to India, but they charge international shipping rates, and the credit card is charged in USD.

The interest in buying Yamuna Devi Dasi's classic cooking book "Lord Krishna's Cuisine: The Art of Indian Vegetarian Cooking" was rekindled when Kurma Dasaji started running a series of recipes from Yamuna Deviji. And, this book shows on Amazon. But can we order locally? We don't know.

A good idea would be to check some Indian e-stores such as indiatimes.com or the more popular one for books flipkart.com. That's what I'm going to do next.