The Corner of Mads

Among the many things recently that I've found very surprising, some real estate agents refuse to work with you (aka show their listings) if you indicate that you found their listing on Redfin. How self defeating can you get? There's a 3% of profit out there if you take the trouble to show homes to people who are interested in them. If you don't, someone will eat your lunch for you.

I sometimes wish I could post up a list of agents who gave me a tirade on why the Internet Is Bad for their business and how I'm a horrible person for using Redfin. For a moment, consider this: you are the seller and your (friend/buddy/colleague) tells you that your agent just spoke to a prospective buyer in that manner. What do you think is likely to happen? Do you really want to do that?

I'm thrilled with Redfin, I couldn't find a smarter, better and well thought out site. I'm also thrilled about the announcement that Redfin is profitable. I liked their seminars, they were clever and pointed out why working with them is good; but didn't act all clingy and creepy and force you to work with them. I think this techcrunch is dead on here, if I was in the traditional real estate industry, I'd be shuddering as well.

If history is anything to go by, then in about 3-6 months, the initial kinks get worked out and the price gets a little bit more realistic.

My old Treo 680 is steadily going downhill (battery charging for a start). I suspect I might just have to go to a iPhone if there is no unlocked GSM option (I'm on ATT) for the Pre.

Admittedly, I've never even turned on the iPod I got after Panama, so the Apple gadget fear runs deep....

After much work, I tried to get NDTV Live to watch the election results (mostly due to old memories of elections with Prannoy Roy). Perhaps it's me, but the older NDTV appeared much more professional, cool and sophisticated. Perhaps, it's just that I've gotten older and I can see how they are making mistakes or it's just that they just prefer to interrupt people all the time now....

The other interesting point was that this election was the first one after the census based delimitation exercise. The first elections for "urban" India (yes, I know that some of my friends will get after me, India still lives in it's villages, but the shift is well underway). The most compelling data point for me is that the national parties are back. All talk of elections being local and nothing else, split, narrow  and parochial are rather unfounded.

the work cappuccino machine has a "South Indian coffee" setting. I expect my coffee intake to skyrocket.

In other news, I'm in Bangalore for a super short visit.

From the so weird, it can't be possibly happening dept:

"Let's say you're a defense-company marketing executive. And you want to make a splash at the Indian defense ministry's annual air show. Do you:

(a) buy expensive gifts for New Delhi's generals;
(b) treat the press to Kingfishers and samosas;
(c) produce a Bollywood-esque video featuring bare-midriff girls, flower-draped missiles, and the catch phrase "dinga dinga dee?"

Unfortunately for us, Israeli arms-maker Rafael chose C."

The actual hysterical article is at Wired Israeli Armsdog-Millionaires Assault Bollywood, Good Taste (tip of hat to Silk).

I ended up with a weird "One Time Charge - No Tax" $50.00 charge on my latest ATT bill. After calling, I got through eventually to a very nice customer care representative, who then was able to reverse it and was equally mystified as to what was going on.

When I was there, I decided to get rid of Roadside Assistance as well. If you are on ATT and are not being careful, you are losing $36 a year.

Oh well for the joys of opt out automatic signing up for deals you never wanted.

Just wanted to capture a sense of how busy and weird this month has been.

Work, more work and yet more work. A significant release that was pushed out to next month. Plans for travel to India that are currently in flux. A new baby boy for a dear friend. Bugs, bugs and more bugs. Performance reviews and writing a gazillion review documents. Car fixes and cold start problems. Snow in Seattle in February. Watching Slumdog Millionaire a day after the Oscars. House hunting that never seems to end. Making pasta with Sriracha for heat. Shopping to finish VSP before a deadline.

I have a new beloved book to recommend "India after Gandhi:The History of the World's Largest Democracy" (tip of the hat goes to various folks on Silk, who's recommendation made me go read this book)

For a while, I've been ranting and raving about a lack of contemporary Indian history. This book does a lot of it. Not enough for the last decade, but I can put that down to being around in those years. But if you haven't read it and are remotely interested in India, do yourself a favour. Get it now.

Sometime ago I'd indicated that the No.1 Ladies Detective Agency series reminded me of RK Narayan. More confirmation on how they are linked via the Deccan Herald.

Much like a Annus Horribilis, this month (mensis) is turning out to be sufficiently horrific.

First, it started out with an innocuous snowball of a problem at work that started rolling sometime last December. That just kept rolling and gaining steam until it became this annoying large hassle. Having fixed that another more predictable and preventable wood splinter of a problem just wedged itself into my hand.

Sufficiently annoyed with life this week, it proceeded to get worse. A place (the second, if proper score keeping is to be adhered to) that I was looking to move into got snatched right out of my hands. Gaah. Finally, to add insult to injury, my car refuses to start. Jump starting seems to indicate that something else other than the battery is at work. Like someone said at work, the only great thing about now - more than half the month is already gone.

And, to think, I've yet to start on a week.

If the first ICSE post wasn't enough, a nudge from sidcarter lead me to to a blog post where another old textbook - the Treasury of Short Stories is being tracked down by the interwebs.

It's slightly unusual to believe that for example Sir Patrick Hastings (worthy of a rather long wikipedia article and a story pored over by countless students) has no copy of his story "The Lost Pearls" up anywhere on the internet!

I have to go poke around with my old textbooks store at home.

In school, in one of the ICSE Hindi textbooks, we had a set of Dohae (or two line poems) from Kabir. Today, I was suddenly reminded of them.

After no end two trying different spellings and search terms (and two search engines), I have to confess, that I'm at a loss for finding the set of poems that I had originally studied. Now I realize that what might have been in the textbook is neither canonical nor exactly ordered, but my memory lends itself to the poetry having a certain cadence and meter, which I'm missing now.


Sigh.

After hearing and reading so much about Jim Lahey's No Knead bread recipe, I tried it. And again. And finally, on the third attempt, it's something that reasonable to eat. Yet, not spectacular. The first time around, I used a 100% whole wheat flour. The second time, it was too little yeast. This time, it was too much water.

On the other hand, the fact that the recipe produced edible results after me mucking around with it is a testament to how idiot proof it is. The idiots shall persevere. And perhaps inherit the loaf.

The smell and taste of freshly baked bread is a strong motivator. Try it, it is really simple!

Seattle has had a cold wave and the attendant snow that goes with it. Here's a photograph of the street outside our home:





It's very strange, after this first snowfall, I'm strangely wistful. Memories of snow showers and bus stop waits. Of Ithaca and the year in Cornell. Taxi rides and sleeping over at the MEng lab. I never thought that I'd either be wistful or look back fondly at snowfall. I now realize that I have a lot of positive memories about winter and snow.

Amazon DevPay is now out of limited beta and available generally.

That's a good thing.