Kiran Jonnalagadda’s Blog

The fire escape is a security hazard?

Yarr! We be taking chair hostage!

Heh.

Whoever makes those hats must be doing good business. The city is overrun with kids peddling them. Wonder what the economics of the operation are.

I read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell this week and enjoyed it. It did not feel as well rounded as The Tipping Point, but remained highly readable.

That this is the first book I’ve read since August made it even more satisfying.

Time magazine’s cover features a “mirror” that distorts more than reflects, and tells a story everyone already knows. This is what you read when you want to get excited despite being late to the party.

Google now has street maps for some cities in India. Check out this map of Bangalore.

Today I saw a man with a cracked helmet in two parts, held together with packing tape.

Apparently it's good enough to pass the helmet rule.

Last night I came home to find a rope tied to the gate, blocking my entrance. I cut the rope. This morning, there’s a clothesline up on the remaining line.

The bubble is tense. Really. Run!

This rickshaw has a fan embroidered into the ceiling. It even bestows the driver a halo.

Rather exhausted at the moment and about to run for the third of four flights in as many days, so just pictures from now. Update later.

My plans for a peaceful three day weekend in Delhi got horribly mangled by an unexpected meeting in the middle. I’m now engaged in a game of cross-country ping-pong at 10,000 metres. Here’s my travel schedule:

Friday: …Bangalore
Saturday: New Delhi
Sunday: Bangalore
Monday: New Delhi
Tuesday: Bangalore…

Currently in Bangalore. Flew in this morning for the meeting, now trying to catch up on sleep before the next flight in four hours. It’s two and a half hours each way. I’ve been up since 4:40 AM this morning, as I was the day before yesterday, and will be again the day after tomorrow, trying to return in time for another appointment at 9.30 AM Tuesday.

Nothing works faster at getting one horrified at the prospect of flying a discount airline.

Ladies and gentlemen, the OLPC. In person.

Indigo Airlines’s flight safety information card uses the motif of a man in a turban. What an unfortunate stereotype.

Morning run around the local park. Thumping chest. What a great start.

Why does Bangalore have so few parks?

5.30am. There’s a queue of women by the roadside with cans lined up. The daily water supply? Kerosene? We don’t know. More women are joining the queue each minute.

And pray how will they void the license? Do they even have an electronic registry that the next cop can check against? What’s stopping one from presenting a photocopy of the license, or claiming to have left it at home and getting off with just a fine?

So scrumptious, the dogs are all patrolling the door?

This is neat. A public interest ad that uses imagery from Indian folklore, complete with whirling headgear, instead of the standard two horned dude.

This place would be ready to ‘Move & live-in’. It would be the largest in India. It would have central air-conditioning and would be facing a golf course.

Sadly it isn’t, because they ‘would’ not hire a copy editor who ‘would’ tell them that the cheerful, future-looking word they need is ‘will’.

Why does the Business Standard have an illustration captioned like it were a news photograph?

Attend more geek conferences. Only five this year? That’s pathetic.

The surest way to protect against post-event hangover is to be constantly drunk on the energy. Now to find a balance between having enough time¹ to be creative — to make the things that are to be exhibited at these events — and to attend enough to remain inspired.

(Needless to say, I’m having Barcamp Bangalore 2 hangover. That was one great event.)

1. Inspiration manufactures time. Didn’t you know that?

A pup in his petrol tank! Ooh! How cute!

Either the general public’s sense of aesthetic is dismal, or good design is inaccessible to the general public.

Which brings up the question: is good design possible without a good distribution network to spread it around and protect from rip-offs? Will the coming retail revolution also be an aesthetic revolution? Or will retail be the vehicle for a mass produced “you can only be S, M, L or XL” aesthetic?

I’m delayed uploading the event pictures, largely because spare time at even weekends is running low. I also spent more time listening than taking pictures, so there are very few here. The next event is the Global Voices Summit in Delhi this coming weekend. That makes it five (un)conferences this year. Perhaps a summary is in order.