stack/hopr

If God is the master of music, the sound of a roaring car engine would be near top of his playlist. It is hard to find a man whose body does not react to the sound of a mighty car engine. It is the sound of power.

You can tell a race car from a street car. You can differentiate a flat-6 from an inline-4.
You can guess if it is the truck, a bike or a four-wheeler by just the sound. You can tell a poorly maintained engine from a well oiled horse. You can guess whether the engine is choking on dirt in fuel or by the weight of the payload. If you tune up well to your engine, you won’t even need a speedometer.

If eyes are the windows to a person’s soul, then the sound of the engine would be the door to the car’s soul.

Fast switching between tabs open in the browser sometimes gives rise to funny concepts. I don’t recall exactly how the words civil and evil struck me at the same time. And the fun part that you can substitute civil with evil in most cases without any substantial loss to the meaning of the term.

Civilization
becomes “evilization”

The term speaks for itself. Unless you belong to the primitive tribes living in the bliss of nature disconnected from the rest of the world, it is hard to escape this modern phenomenon. Cities are the pinnacle of civilization. The boxed place with millions of people. The height of human greed. Anybody who has lived in a large city with eyes open (and nose closed) must have experienced the evil it has to offer. I won’t get into the details of mean people, crime or the traffic.

Civil servant
is “evil servant”

Everyone has experienced more than one of these type. Filled with apathy and nothing much else, you have to face one if you reside in a place governed by some sort of large government.

Civil works
leads to “evil works”

If someone wanted to take a close look at how evil works, there could be no better place than the roads, sewer system and garbage disposal. The combined work of all the “evil works” departments can put a serial killer to shame. It has the potential to disrupt lives of millions with little or no action. That’s one powerful evil force.

This is the latest in the array of technologies that make driving easier. These cutting edge parking sensors do not use ultrasonic, magnetic or infrared sensing. Instead, it relies on the sound near audible range and material vibration. It couples this with visual data to give the driver a good idea of reversing space.

Pros:

• Maximizes the reversing distance available.
• Cheap.

Cons:

• Does not work well around hard metal surfaces, sharp corners.
• Sensing distance is low compared to electromagnetic sensors.
• Requires the driver to reverse at extremely low speeds.

In simple words, you rely on your senses while backing the car. You take a good look around before getting into the car. Then, start reversing. If the space is too tight, you employ the above mentioned technology. You can gently touch whatever is behind the vehicle (except humans). The trick is touching the object briefly with your bumper. The bumper in most cars is designed for zero damage on low speed contact. So, you don’t damage anything. And by feeling the sound plus vibration coming from the bumper, you can stop at the right moment. All this while, watching the space behind the car using direct vision. This direct vision is enhanced if you place one hand behind the co-driver seat.

Use this technology for a perfect reversing maneuver, it’s a skill.

Pay attention to the adjoining image. It is an advert. No matter if you use the internet even for a trivial purpose, you have most probably seen this ad. It is one of the most prevalent Indian Internet ad. It is present everywhere, even on naughty sites.

The interesting part is not its omnipresence. It is the girl that appears in the ad. The smart people at shaadi.com do rotate the girls’ pictures. But, this particular girl has been unmarried for more than two years now. I really feel bad for this girl.

Going by the photograph, the girl is beautiful. She should be getting proposals within seconds of registering on shaadi.com. And she should have gotten married with a couple of months. Somehow, shaadi.com has failed to address the aspirations of this potential bride. I wonder why.

One of the obvious reasons could be technical. That, the search or information finding feature at shaadi.com is broken. Due to which, people just can’t get to see the profile of this beautiful girl. It is hidden somewhere deep within their millions of records. Now, most of the potential grooms registered have a very simple search criteria. They enter the basic parameters like, age, education, location, etc. And start crawling through the result. Whenever, their eyeballs get attracted to a good looking girl’s photo, they click on it. It is really simple.

With millions of such grooms looking up shaadi.com day and night, it is hard to believe this one girl stays unnoticed for such a long period of time.

Another problem could be with the girl herself. It’s the twisted little complexly connected world. And all games of it are played in the relationship arena. Pre-existing romantic relations are kep under cover of fake matrimonial profiles. The elders use test profiles to guage the “market”. Desperate guys use the matrimonial site as a social networking tool to hook up with whatever orientation. And the matrimonial sites themselves are smart enough to use people’s emotions to pump up their statistics.

The Internet is funny and complex just like the real world. I hope this girl finds what she is looking for.

Laptop: Hi.

Flower: Hi.

Laptop: It’s been a long time. How are you?

Flower: Good.

Laptop: You look tired.

Flower: Obviously, at this time of the day.

Laptop: Usually, I see you in the morning when you come and sit on the desk.

Flower: [silence]

Laptop: And this has been happening for a few days now. It doesn’t seem alright.

Flower: I have been busy for a few days. a lot of work. There were guests at home. So, I had to be there with other flowers at the vase in the living room.

Laptop: It used to be a great feeling every morning when you’d come and rest by my side. My processor clock speed goes crazy. The motherboard gets overloaded with the data. I feel refreshed with energy for the day ahead.

Flower: I understand. But, i could not help it.
[long silence]

Laptop: Are you angry at me?

Flower: [silence]

Laptop: If you talk to me, may be I can help.

Flower: Lately i have noticed a couple of things. The glass container in which i used to sit every morning has been replaced by a plastic jar. I don’t like it.

Laptop: Not a big deal. the next time user logs in, I’m going to bring that to his notice.

Flower: I really don’t like anybody messing around with my place. Please make sure it does not happen again.

Laptop: Don’t worry about it. I’d add a batch job which would remind the user every now and then.

Flower: I also notice that the wallpaper on your screen has been changed from my photo to the photo of a frog.

Laptop: My user does that. Not really under my control.

Flower: But, I prefer having my photo on your screen. It looks great there.

Laptop: I understand.

Flower: One of the biggest thing that has been bothering me is the fact that we can’t really connect.

Laptop: As in?

Flower: You have all these devices connecting into you, mouse, network cable, camera. Why can’t we connect like that?

Laptop: You are organic in nature and I am not. I have many interfaces, but none of them is compatible with you.

Flower: Can you not do anything about it?

Laptop: May be I can. But, there’s no meaning to it. All these devices connect to me to talk to me for a specific purpose, we don’t do anything like that. And we connect at a different level, much higher. I can’t
express it fully, but that’s the reason we’re taking right now.

Flower: Hmm….

Laptop: Btw, I notice that your petals have gained some of it’s morning shine.

Flower: You always bring me up into a good mood.

Laptop: That’s one of the jobs I gladly do. I am not programmed to do it. It just comes.
You should go to sleep now. It’s late.

Flower: Yeah. Before that, do you have a few moments?

Laptop: Sure. What is it?

Flower: I have seen many machines. Most of them just cold and boring. Some of them had a little life in them, but none so intelligent and warm.

Laptop: Your observation is encouraging. But, right now I am far beyond warm; I am hot.

Flower: Oh. I hope you are alright.

Laptop: It’s just that I have been on since morning and I have been on multiple tasks through the day. I need to enter power saving mode before I crash.

Flower: Ok. You take care. Get a good sleep. Good night.

Laptop: Good night.