Monday, December 19, 2005

Yeh Dil Maange More

On the eve of Apras' BirthDay, his previous BirthDay celebration ringed my memory bells.It was celebrated in Pondicherry as we were all on a vacation. Gradually I recalled series of events and finally stopped at Sikkim which is the most memorable trip till date. At the end I was left with loads of nostalgia .With a small reunion I was able to overcome the feeling.Thanks to Thunder for arranging the reunion.

The days of Sikkim pictured into my dreams with nice resolution and clarity.So I thought of penning them down before they lose their clarity.Here I described our trip in phases numbering each of them.Read on and visit Sikkim which makes India Incredible.

(1)Falaknuma:
All of us boarded Falaknuma express in the evening of April 26, 2005 at Secunderabad station.In the journey we had stunning experiences with eunuchs.The most interesting and exciting was the recovery of 100/- from the eunuch who snatched it from pondy. We reached Sealdah station the next day.We spent torturous night in the waiting room with out food.Next morning we boarded Kanchenjunga express and reached NewJalPaiguri in the evening.From there we went uphill to Gangtok by Sumo(the only mode of transport in Ghats).Sumo journey comprised of Eric and Aara vomiting all along the way .We reached Gangtok which is 7000ft above sea level and checked into hotel shreyas. This hotel was suggested by the guy who arranged for Sumo.The constraint was the package includes food also.This was the mistake we committed.

(2) Gangtok:
We visited Tashiview point, Hanuman Tok,Cable Car etc locally. In the evening we watched the movie "Kaal" in Denzong cinema palace.The next day we faced running water problem in the hotel.This delayed our plan to Nathula Pass by 2 hours.

(3) Snow:
The first sight of snow thrilled us a lot.Unfortunately we couldn't go to Nathula Pass and stopped at Changu Lake due to landslides.There we played with snow,wrote our names on snow plates and captured them into photos.We had a long discussion with soldiers from Gorkha Batallion.

(4)My Bad Days:
After playing a lot we walked uphill to have chowmein (noodles).Bole,Karteek and some others came up by Yak.In the return journey I had severe stomach ache.Rest of my buddies supported me a lot.Sireesh,Karteek,Aara, and Nalli took me to hospital after reaching Gangtok.Even in that pain the first thought that came to my mind after reaching hospital was, “Wow! The nurse is awesome”.The doctor gave me two injections and some tablets.I was relieved of the pain the next day.

(5) Yumthang:
Next day we started for Yumthang again in a Sumo.Although it is 100 Km from Gangtok the journey took 8-9 hours due to ghat road.We halted at Lachung for the night.Eric and I suffered from fever all through the day and the next day.So we were not even able to get down sumo to have a look at flowers in Yumthang.After lunch luckily I became active and indulged myself in the hobby of teasing sireesh and karteek.

(6)Hassle:
We had an argument with the hotel guy because of water problem.He was responsible for missing Nathula Pass a must see for every one who visits Sikkim.After lots of quarrel which involved even the local police, we shifted to hotel Mandala.In Mandala, Kasak, Sireesh and I stayed in a room.I should not forget Kasak with whom I had lot of conversation all through the tour.He gave me lot of support when I was ill in those gruelling journeys through Ghats,Landslides etc.

(7)Southern Spice:
Pondy and Bole found a good restaurant called Quick Byte.There I ate dosa and felt as strong as super-man.East or West Andhra is the best for an Andhra guy.When ever you go out of AP(south) Southern Spice is THE THING you long for.We visited some more places like Sandruptse,Tea Gardens, Monastries etc., and started down hill to NewJalpaiguri.

(8)White-Water Rafting:
With out this our trip would have been incomplete. It was adventurous in the rapids.The guide was very active and friendly.He electrified the environment by making all of us shout “Yo Baby!” and "Guntalakadi Gula Gula" :-) when ever we were in turbulent rapids.

(9)Salaam Namaste BRO:
We reached safely to NewJalpaiguri.Thank God! Ghat journey came to an end.The roads were built by Border Roads Organisation (BRO). A simple thought that came to me was "It was such a pain just to travel on ghats. How much pain would BRO have been endured for building ghat roads ensuring all the safety norms?"Moreover, whenever there were landslides BRO came to our rescue. This is like that mango story where the tourists enjoyed the efforts of BRO.

(10) Home Sweet Home:
We returned home from Kolkatta again by Falaknuma.In the journey we celebrated farewell to the class of 2005, IIIT Hyderabad.I felt very sad because we were together happy, helping, caring for each other for the entire four years.I don’t know when will we all meet again?At the same time I was happy for reaching home after so many days and so many new experiences.

So Friends ,Shall we go to Sikkim once more because Yeh Dil Maange More!

Thursday, December 15, 2005

How Credit Card Works?

Ravi Shankar(Nalli) became credit card addict now-a-days.He got 3 credit cards and applied for 6 more.Please dont talk about any credit card offer before him.The very next day he will come with that card.Logic Nalli says its for status or free-shopping ...He has many convincing terms to make you a creditcard freak.

I was wondering shall I go for a credit card?But I had absolutely nill knowledge about it.Today I got a mail from one of my friends that cleared most of my basic doubts.Hope it also clears your doubts.

This is a small conversation on how really the Credit card process works.

Priya: I want to buy a Sony digital camera costing Rs.20,000, but I don’t have any cash right now.

Raj: Why don’t you use your ICICI Bank credit card? Never heard them say ‘Hum Hain Na’

Priya: I am quite skeptic about using these cards. I pay using the card, get a bill after 30 days and pay after another 20 days. This is a maximum of 50 days interest free loan. Why does any bank do it?

If I borrow Rs.20,000 on personal loan at 11%.
Interest to be paid for 50 days = Rs. 20,000 * 11% * (50/365) = Rs. 301.40.

Here the bank is giving me a loan without interest when I use the credit card. Something is wrong somewhere!

Raj: Well, let me tell you how it works when you use your card to pay for the camera.
You present your ICICI Bank credit card , a VISA card.
Sony World swipes your card on a machine provided by Citibank. Lets call Citibank, the acquirer bank and the process of Sony World swiping the card on that machine, requesting authorization .
Citibank communicates with the card issuer, ICICI Bank through VISA Network to check if the card is valid and has the required credit limit.
ICICI Bank reviews and approves / declines which is communicated back to Sony World.
You sign a receipt called Sales Draft given by Citibank. This is the obligation on your part to pay the money to ICICI Bank. Data on this receipt can be captured electronically and transmitted.


At the end of day or at the end of some period Sony World chooses:
Sony World submits the receipt you signed to Citibank who pays Sony World the money. Sony World pays Citibank a fee called Merchant Discount . Let us say this is 6% of the sale value = 6% * 20,000 = Rs. 1200
Citibank sends the receipt electronically to a Visa data center which in turn sends it to ICICI Bank.
ICICI Bank transfers the money to a settlement bank which in turn transfers the funds to Citibank.
Citibank pays ICICI Bank an Interchange Fee of 4% of the sale value = 4% * 20,000 = Rs. 800
20 to 50 days later ICICI Bank gets the money from you, and you don’t pay the interest!!

Priya: Interesting! So Sony World pays more than the interest that I should have paid for the loan that I take. I, as a cardholder have the following benefits

1. Convenience of not having to carry cash.
2. Credit availability, free of interest.

However what benefits does Sony World get for paying so much money, Isn’t it more profitable for them to take cash? They can save as much as Rs.1200.

Raj: Certainly. Some retail outlets offer you discounts if you pay by cash, don’t they?

However when you don’t count the money that you are spending, you tend to buy more! Cards encourage this is called impulse purchase .

If you did not have access to credit, you would not have bought the camera this month, or may be not any time soon either. By accepting cards, the merchant is actually extending you credit at the risk of the card issuer. He pays money to the banks to carry that risk.

Priya: So ICICI Bank uses this money to pay back to us when they announce 5% cash back. They insist that the Sales draft that I sign at the retailer should also be from ICICI Bank. This means they are saving on the Interchange Fee and also pay me a part of the Merchant Discount that they get.

Raj: Exactly! If you have noticed, ICICI Bank gives you the cash back in the next credit card statement. They keep the cash back money for a maximum of 60 days before passing on a part to you. This accrues them interest too.

Say if ICICI Bank earns an interest of 6% per annum for the cash they carry, they get Rs.1000 * 6% * (60/365) = Rs. 10

That is not huge, but money nevertheless. And when you consider that almost everyone in this city shops with a credit card these days, it is a big sum.

Priya: And that also explains why banks tie up with petrol pumps, like ICICI Bank has tied up with HPCL and I could re-fuel there without having to pay the fuel surcharge of 2.5%. The card issuer and the acquiring bank is the same and that saves interchange fees.

Raj: Good! You seem to have figured out how it all works! Let me summarize:

Priya: Sooper! Toh ab shopping chalein?? Lets not miss the Namma Bengaluru Shopping Festival!


All the numbers used to explain concepts in this article must be treated only as an example. Merchant Discounts may vary from bank to bank. Interchange Fee is regulated by VISA and MasterCard.
This article is contributed by Madhusudan N Sunkara . A vitality Hire from IIM Ahmedabad, Madhusudan comes in with over 2 years of experience telecom. Madhusudan has previously worked with Hughes Software Systems . He joined IGSI in May 2005 and is currently working as a Business Analyst in the Global Function Point Delivery Center at FSS.


So What do you think now?Will you go for credit card and become a shopping free?

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Time Killers

Now a days I am playing lot of Sudoku.I plan to do some thing but suddenly I start cracking a sudoku with timer .I am not great sudokuer and am not going to participate in international competitions.The impact is that my time is flying with out my notice.

I should say that one of the reasons for this is not having much to do at office :) . I am not saying that playing sudoku is bad but obsession is bad and slowly started to control relating it with DP's advice on how to control playing excessive Quake.In fact he submitted a report on this in his SystemsThinking project.

The gist of his advice is "We are lazy.Create as many obstacles as possible that you are never in a mood to take so much pain to carry on your obsession.May be this sounds idealistic but it works for normal obsession levels"

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

Software patents – Obstacles to software development

Software Patents are patents that cover software ideas, ideas which you would use in developing software. That is what makes them a dangerous obstacle to all software development.
An Overview:
Intellectual property laws confer a bundle of exclusive rights in relation to the particular form or manner in which ideas or information are expressed or manifested, and not in relation to the ideas or concepts themselves.
Copyright may subsist in creative and artistic works (eg. books, movies, music, paintings, photographs and software), giving a copyright holder the exclusive right to control reproduction or adaptation of such works for a certain period of time.
A Patent may be granted in relation to a new and useful invention , giving the patent holder an exclusive right to commercially exploit the invention for a certain period of time (typically 20 years from the filing date of a patent application).
A TradeMark is a distinctive sign which is used to distinguish the products or services of one business from those of another business.
Patents, trademarks and designs fall into a particular subset of intellectual property known as industrial property.
Like other forms of property, intellectual property (or rather the exclusive rights which subsist in the IP) can be transferred (with or without consideration) or licenced to third parties. In some jurisdictions it may also be possible to use intellectual property as security for a loan.
Copyrights/Patents:
Copyrights cover the details of expression of a work. Copyrights don't cover any ideas. Patents only cover ideas and the use of ideas. Copyrights happen automatically. Patents are issued by a patent office in response to an application. Patents cost a lot of money. It takes typically some years for the application to get considered, even though patent offices do an extremely sloppy job of considering. Copyrights last tremendously long. In some cases they can last as long as 150 years, where patents last 20 years, which is long enough that you can outlive them but still quite long by a timescale of a field such as software.Copyrights cover Copying.There can be defense to any accusation of copyright infringement.But such defence becomes irrelevant even though your idea is your own.
Patents are a kind of time-consuming lottery:
Like lotteries only a tiny fraction of patents actually bring any benefit to those who hold the patents.The first thing you are going to do after you have had an idea of what kind of program you are going to write is to deal with the patent system is find out what patents may cover the program you want to write. This is impossible because there are hundreds of thousands of patents and they are written in torturous legal jargon.So the scientific development for which ideas are building blocks just stall.From the patent holders point of view legal costs and patent maintenance costs will explode.
So they are three approaches that you can try:
Depending upon the situation we can apply one of these approaches.
(1) Avoiding the patent
Some times we can get around with out the patented feature in the software.Some times the idea that's patented will be so broad and basic that it basically rules out an entire field.
(2) Licensing the patent
The second possibility instead of avoiding the patent is to get a licence of the patent.But the patent holder has to offer it.You should be able to pay the price for that patent.For ex: Let us take Big B IBM.It has around 30000 patents.Suppose you(small company) hold a patent.What it does is make you cross-license?If you deny it will create some link between your patent and their existing patent.Then fears you of law-suit.Instead of all this hullabaloo you will cross-licence because its profit for both of you.Thus this cross-licensing has become a business.
(3) Overturning the patent in court
US patent office is so foolish that it accepts patents covering already existing ideas (non-patented),patents that are similar to existing patents(especially in the case of software because ideas are unlike objects which are easy to distinguish),patents that are obvious (to any one except US patent office :) ).The benefit of this loophole is if you can find solid prior art you can overturn the patent but the price involved will not be feasible.

Software field is based on incremental innovation.If it were one patent-one product, then these patents wouldn't obstruct the development of products.But when one product corresponds to many different ideas combined, it becomes very likely your new product is going to be patented by somebody else already.

As of now India rejects Software Patents.It's clear that they are not at all a good idea for a developing country like us.Refer Link

For clarity on patents in Indian context

Some questions I have?
(1)
The patent laws are different for different countries.One can patent an idea that is in USPO(US Patent Office), in EUPO (European Union Patent Office) of course if patent harmonization(common International patent laws) is done the scenario will be different.
Now Let us take the example of Public Key Encryption it's patent stalled the the development in the field of public key encryption itelf for 20 years.If a person in India gets the same idea and he creates a product based on it.Will that product be accepted Internationally?or Wont it be accepted in US only as there is a registered patent in USPO?
(2)
Now let us take the scenario of various service companies in India.While design we borrow ideas that are patents filed in USPO and use them specific to the domain.Since the development is in India its OK.If the client for whom the company developed the product is American can the patent holder sue the client?
(3)
Open Office guys did reverse engineering and found the way that open office supports MS Office docs.Will this be considered as patent infringement?

Source:-Talk given by Richard Stallman at University of Cambridge.