Thursday, November 20, 2014

Research, redesign and parallel universes

The popular belief that a product must be thought of from the ground up while being conceptualized is absolutely correct. Popular belief often begs to be corrected, but in the aforementioned case, the practice that has come to be exercised over the years is fairly appropriate.

Usually, of course.

Such a practice, or any popular practice for that matter, becomes widely accepted over long term use, reuse, getting broken and shattered to pieces, and then getting taped up and glued together before being reused. Again.
Any thing that a person makes goes through multiple iterations of improvement upon improvement, evolution, to the point of quasi-saturation – a point where a product appears to lie in a popularly accepted status quo.

But that has hardly ever been the case.

Products change – inch by inch, or even at a molecular level, at varying speeds; from weeks to months to years to generations and further lapses of time. But they don't change because they're getting old, wrinkly and need medication. They change because we make them change. We shave off what we don't need, and do what was previously difficult or impossible to do so that we can consistently arrive at a better solution. Every iteration that was the best at its time gets succeeded by something even better.

All of this happens so naturally that we often find ourselves asking why we couldn't have thought of something so simple earlier.

But we couldn't have. In such a seemingly natural evolution, products follow a path of tackling a need or a problem that can be alleviated. We use the best resources available to us at the time and attempt to balance ease of development and its economic worth.

Consider, however, that all of these decisions and the evolution a product underwent happened only in one universe – the one that you're reading this in. Perhaps, in another parallel universe, maybe we approached the same product differently. We attempted to tackle the need and diminish the problem using an entirely different set of resources.
In that universe, the product would evolve differently, too.

Even though popular belief agrees to thinking of a product concept from the ground up, we often limit ourselves to thinking of current solutions when attempting to redesign something.

While that's somewhat of a good practice – it does let us explore what options we already have; helps us avoid re-inventing the wheel – it also tends to put us inside a box. The same materials. The same UI grids. The same patterns.

When the objective is to redesign the wheel, I believe it is more important to understand why the wheel exists as it does today. What made it evolve to what it has come to? What? Do we really want to put air inside the thing? Have you seen the roads? Oh man, that turn on exit 51 has some of the worst potholes in the history of forever.

So when you're thinking from the ground up, dig a little deeper and go a little under-ground. When you're redesigning, in the words of Mr. Einstein, be "passionately curious."

Friday, September 19, 2014

Dear mom and dad,

Please call me back
Tell me nice things;
How to live life
and be good at that.

Tell me I should eat,
Tell me I should read;
Wake me up tomorrow,
To 9 AM, I plead.

I wonder what you're up to,
And I guess I needed to be alone
Needed to spend some time
to realise the truth about home.

The missing isn't throbbing,
but it sure is there.
How our trips to the mall,
would be with fanfare.

Growing up is a lie –
We're all already grown.
Is the test of time present
to see who lasts alone?


Saturday, June 14, 2014

Time travails

Time travel is, by far, one of the most high priority items on my to-do list.

However, time travel is pretty vague when displayed as a simple couple of words. I would've crossed it off my list, but right when I take my pencil there, it just appears to deviate more and more towards an ambiguous umbrella term.

I would've also crossed it off if I had fewer items on my to-do list.

Time is, I believe, the one thing that shouldn't have had wings. Because when it flies, it soars. To the point that if it were rain, it'd pour. 

The unending shortage of time, by catch-22, makes time travel appear on top of my list again. It makes me ponder the very possibility of the umbrella term in this pouring rain of flying time. And it makes me wonder why I'd choose to travel to the past out of all places.

Looking back always comes drenched in fluctuations of peak experiences of happiness and unending pits of despair. Most of my rationale for desiring to travel to the past comes reinforced with the feeling of being able to correct whatever I believe to have "messed up." If life were more like a certain social networking site, misdemeanours would be posts, and walls could be wiped clean at whim – as was pointed out by a very excellent, like-minded amigo. 

"Go back and delete them, just in case it would ever be looked at again." 

However, everything that has happened to and/or with us; everything it is that we've experienced, committed, and been a part of is what makes us what we are today – wiser, amongst other things. Unless, you want to make the same mistake over and over again, in which case, please, take your time. But do learn eventually. 
Additionally, if I were to consider the scientific aspect of things and take chronology into account, the butterfly effect comes to be factored in. Erasing portions of the past could lead to a future so drastically different – so many light years away from whatever you've imagined it'd lead to – that your whole plan would be obsolete. If, that is, you even remember the plan in this newly chanced upon future.

This, thus, leads to the possibility that we can travel back in time considering that our actions and events are fixed in permanency, due to which we are able to partake in the activity of time travel. Considering that, even if we do go back, we'd do the exact same things again, and never realise that we've gone back in time at all.

But you've been informed all wrong.

Allow me to point it out right here and debunk all your uncertainties about time travel – it is very possible. So much so that you've already indulged in time travel. Not once. Not twice. So many times that only calendars can keep count. 

Not only that – you still do it, you little rebel, you. Every day. Every minute. You travel into the future. At the speed of 60 seconds per minute. Every minute. Every day. 
And you make this choice because you have the power to change every aspect of your future. Going to the past won't make life better today. Traveling to today will make tomorrow better for sure. 

Well, then. This is awkward. The entire premise of this writing – the entry on my to-do list – should've already been crossed off.
If only I could go back in time to do that.

Anywho. Next on my list: better time management.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

Transitioning


Best foot forth.

Saturday, May 03, 2014

In silence

Allow me to be clear about this.

Some people effect your momentum greatly. Whether the swing is in a positive direction or not depends on the type of person he or she is, coupled with the type of effect he or she is inflicting upon you.

I am thankful, often to their face, those who help shift the pendulum positively. I am helpless in circumstances other than those. I guess I hardly know better.

In any event, let me reintroduce you to something I've always known – as have you – silence.

In whatever little time I've spent in reflecting over what I've done, I've found that saying some things has worsened situations for me – regardless of the fact that they were intended to band-aid the very same. From what was left of me to deduce, I've faced rebuttal in apologies, majorly because the statements were uncalled for. I've faced rejection because I'd said too much. Confusion to the point of ouroboros where I now blame my words in absence of reason of anything else, like a man dwindling in his footsteps in the middle of a desert in search for the moisture of water.

I'm transitioning into this strange land, where the background music is telling me to shut up.

I tell too many people too many things. Good, or bad, is out of question now. Honesty is a virtue, but I'm in emergency here.

The irony is that I've said it again, in print, on this journal of a blog.

Allow me to be clear. I think I give up. I can't take it or go on like this.

Literally, for once, it would be great to be believed in, rather than to pass that into someone. It would be a godsend to receive the motivation I tend to inject.

So maybe I do need to shut up. Or haven't I already? By not answering the million doorbells that ring – telling myself to function in a one-track manner. I think I have. Broken contact with too much, and somewhere, deep down in the least, it affects me.

Some people effect your momentum greatly. The absence of some, just as much.

Or maybe it doesn't – my self contradiction, love of em dashes, and loss of motivation to make you or myself understand anything tells me just as much as you're reading.

Shutting up – where do I start and where do I go from here? Not posting anything here ever again, and deleting all trace of it because it won't matter anyway?

For some reason, I'm convinced that if I spend enough time alone, everything will be okay.

Yet, for some reason, solitary confinement is the worst punishment the legal system could come up with.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

I'm sleepy

"Your name comes up a lot
when I talk to my mom."
More often than not,
On the tip of my tongue.

Your lab coat appears
in the dreams of my nights.
Stitched in green
your name resides.

In redness I sometimes see,
In the colour of orange trees.
In dark, blue frames,
Was it the blue of the seas?

I once read something,
and it made me wonder:
I...My name is Abhas
Do you sometimes remember?

Friday, March 28, 2014

A very short song

by Dorothy Parker

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.

Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Sandwiches

I guess you've forgotten me now,
As the dust settles on me to not exist.
I must've forgotten -
the easiest way to lose something
is to want it to the hilt. 

Someone once told me:
"the world is a shrinking place,
yet the inhabitants are drifting a p a r t."

Spiders, engines, and universes, then.

Somewhere there's an end you want,
and somewhere there's a start.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Valentime, II

It didn't rain
It's not that cold
Little or no clouds
Sunshine I've been told

The bedsheets aren't blue
My shirt isn't either
I wore a black tie
Being wiser is a breather.

Some of it has to be true
In a world not ours
Somewhere else
We've talked amongst stars

Regardless, however,
in whatever universe
This is not my first poem,
must it be the last verse?

Regardless, however, 
across parallel worlds
you are still you.
and you're still beyond words.

Thank you for everything
And I'm sorry for what I say.
My heart beats the same
from even light years away.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Thank you

Happy private new year to me. :)

I'm just elated and excited. Have much to say, but little to describe. I must have the best family and friends ever, and today, I'm thankful for every bit of happiness from yesterday.

Thank you, every one for each of your wishes. Thank you, people from work for the nice cake and chocolates. Thank you, you, for every thing that you do, for all of your smiles, and for every bit of time you give to me. Thank you, mom and dad and masi and family. Thank you, God.

I had forgotten birthdays, or days at all, could ever be this nice.

Thank you.

Saturday, January 18, 2014

What was I talking about?

You know that feeling when you just curl up into the fetal position like a cosmic egg? When your lips are sealed and you're just letting out a sorrowful hum of helplessness? When it's because of a person, and you tell yourself you really can't live without them?

And then. One day, however unfortunate it may seem, it happens. And then another day, you're on the internet, or with your mom, or dad, or with someone, and in the air nearby, you hear "you won't just die because of a person."

You're told you won't. You're told to look at yourself being "all alive and shit."

It may have some truth to it. For the most part, yes, you are alive. Of course, your vital organs are still functioning, especially if you can read this. You're pretty much good to go, right?

But then this is where the lie comes in. I don't want to be the person who puts it out in a sentence and tells you that you were lied to when you were told you won't stop living if someone leaves. In fact, I'd rather be the person showing you the ray of hope. 

However, it is unfortunate just as much as it is shameful. You do die. You do stop living. You're not that person anymore. Hell, a certain Mr. Mathers is right when he says "You're never over," and God, yes, please, by all means, do always find a way and survive. But you've died. You've changed. You're not the same as you were before. It's not the same. You're waiting for a word or response, and in turn you're thinking "Hell, it's not like I've sent a word either." 

But you wonder. You question your move. Are you really even supposed to send that message? In seeking a reply just because the other person has to be nice to you? Nice enough to respond? 

And you wonder. Why exploit niceness?

And you question your move. Because they probably don't want to hear from you. 

...

People. Let's be worried about cars instead. 

What is up with the industry anyway? Making the same looking cars throughout a company.

Oh the Corolla looks like a miniature Camry. Oh, the 3-series has to be a baby 5. Oh, a 5 has to be a baby 7. I mean okay, you have a visual identity to follow, I understand that, and I am in accord with it. Lol. Get it? In accord.

Alright. Changing topics. Is a waste of time. 

Toodles. 

Friday, January 10, 2014

To do list

Have to meet Sid and the others.
Oh, the Alumni meet.
That email?
My cousins, too.
Have to book that car, too.
Need to fill out that form. ASAP.
Have to send reminder emails for the thing.
Report testing evidence. Remind. And check what's left.
Oh, and figure out which ones are new.
Need to upload the documents.
She told me to get a process note. Monday.
Those forms. Okay, no, mom called and checked.
Monday or Tuesday I have to finish that scanning report too.
TAN.
Testing sheets. Oh, man.
And uploads.
Oh, God.
The user mod evidence is crap. Get it re-done.
That testing sheet is crap too. Re-do.
I wanted to make a poster for crying out loud. To talk to her through that, I guess.
How am supposed to finish anything this weekend.
OH shit research.
That photography project.
That site...oh and I hope the gift was okay.
Oh man I don't want to do anything anymore. I'm done.

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Kids grow up, and they lose their toys. People grow up, and suddenly, people have limited interaction. Don't tell me about...chuck. Dear blog, never go. Stay a while.