The geeks have a word for this apparently inability of the end-users to read a manual – RTFM or Read the Fine Manual. The impatience of getting to use a brand new gadget quickly wears off once you cannot get it to work despite several attempts. The immediate reaction seems to be to reach out for the phone than to read the manual. You begin to raise queries to Tech support when the instructions have been clearly given in the manual. This is where the problem starts. The waste of your time and the Tech support’s time is exactly what the user manual tries to avoid. We will try to explore why this happens.

Why don’t we just read?

It is not the technology users or programmers who are guilty of committing the “Ask before you check” crime. This a common malaise and can be seen everyday while mailing or sending documents for review. It seems there is hardly anyone who does a thorough job of “Reading” these days. In fact, if you know someone who actually reads every line that’s send to him/her, I am sure that person is a quite valuable asset to your team for that particular “skill”.

The vast majority of us are either skimmers or ADHDs (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). The former prefer to gloss over the details and absorb the high level details from 30,000 feet. Once their 5 minute power-read of a document is complete, they bask in the satisfaction of having completed an arduous task of understanding the document in a fraction of the normal time. These superhuman feats are often fraught with the hazard of missing significant detail, but often skimmers are influential enough to disregards such minor details completely. The ADHDs are the ones with coffee coursing through their veins. They often try to start reading and few seconds later, completely give up hope. They procrastinate endlessly about the pile of documents waiting for them at their table. They might eventually turn to skimming but even then it turns boring pretty quickly.

These specimens of our species have been evolved by the forces of nature at work in the last few decades. Call it “Information Overload” or the “Twitter Effect”, there are simply too many streams of information competing for our attention at any given time. The email pop-up on your mail program, the tweet from a celebrity, an SMS from your friend and your phone rings at the same time on a particularly crazy moment. This multitasking is immensely taxing for your brain and in a desperate attempt to cope up, your brain tries to focus on the high-level details rather than the smaller details. The smaller details sometimes get overlapped with each other or completely forgotten and lead to embarrassing situations. Nonetheless we seem to be trapped in this multiple-thread hell as a necessary evil of modern life.

Can we ever truly multitask?

We often think that we are good or bad at multitasking depending on our assessment of ourselves. But the question remains as to if we are even capable of multitasking? This might sound like a silly question at first. Surely we can eat while talking over the phone. Or even listen to a radio show while driving. But have you ever taxed your brain for activities that involve thinking simultaneously? Have you tried writing something while talking over the phone? By writing, I don’t mean a routine chore like signing a cheque. I mean writing a prose or a report which is independent from the telephonic conversation. It might be extremely hard or even impossible to focus on both at the same time.

This leads to an interesting school of thought that our brain works best when there is a single thread of thought. To explain it in analogous terms to computer geeks, our brain is a single processor ¹. The only way we can multitask is by time sharing. We convert each activity into tiny slices which require our attention and quickly juggle through each slice like a skilled juggler. But at any given point of time there is only one slice on your mind, one ball in your hand. The rest are, so to speak, in the air and waiting for their turn.

Many Indian and oriental meditation techniques try to train your mind to develop focus on one particular activity at hand. There might be several other activities but treat them temporarily as distractions and try to train your mind to take the current activity to a logical end-point. The distrations can be blocked mentally, however it is best to actually prevent such distractions in the first place.

Next time you try to read a long document, turn off all the potential distractions. Most mail programs can be disabled to supress pop-ups. You can also turn off your twitter client and put your phone on silent/vibrate. Resisting the temptation to switch to a new activity is the key. Even at an early stage, the rewards of such focussed sessions are easy for one to see. The clarity it brings to your communications is also quite noticeable.

TL;DR

There is prevalent practice in most online forums to write a short summary of a long passage or comment for impatient readers called TL;DR i.e. Too Long; Didn’t Read. I might say that the TL;DR for this writeup is that one’s reading comprehension can be vastly improved if you can focus solely on the task of reading. But that would defeat the purpose, as you would miss the exploration of the problem, classification of the worst offenders or even the analogy of a juggler to the brain elaborated in this writeup.

But then, if you have reached this far, you are not the one who should be reading this!

These little nuggets of wisdom are the ones I always wanted to share to my clueless pedestrians. Sometimes, I have wanted to pull down the glass and scream till its drilled down into their thick skulls. But generally speaking, ignorance is bliss. They look so happy without this knowledge. That’s definitely not normal.

So without further ado here are the top things that every person who comes within 100 meters close to a road must know:

1. Hang-up – I know you love the ones you…ummmm love. But if you are walking close to the road, please do, in the name of Graham Bell, turn off the damn mobile. Unless you want your beloved to hear a live audio of a road accident, it is best to keep a close watch on the road first. I know, I know, you can multitask. But trust me, from a driver’s seat, I have honked at so many mobile-zombies till my hands ache.

2. Don’t be shy to look at the right direction while crossing – Since you are in India, you know that vehicles come from your right. Yet, so many of us choose to carefully watch your left before leaping to the middle of the road. There might be an oil tanker blaring its horns from your right, an auto squawking endlessly in an annoying tirade and even a friendly pan-walla kaka mouthing obscenities, yet you would be transfixed to your left. I mean, what form of dark physical humour is that? Unless, you have recently completed a very long onsite trip from US or the Middle East, you ought to know that the things with wheels come from your right. No, not that right. The other right.

3. Don’t cross in an underlit road – It is a long day and you are walking back home with that blessed device on your ear. Streetlights are alternately working and in some places pitch dark. Guess what, in your infinite wisdom, you pick the dark spot to cross the road. The next thing you know, a speeding Honda City missed you completely. Yes, they come with headlights these days. But being seen on the road and not seen, is the difference between life and death.

4. Don’t dance in front of cars – I know that you know some moves, but tarred roads are not the best dance floors. I am referring to those half-minded pedestrians who cross the road, see an approaching vehicle, pause, then moonwalk, then pause, then move forward, then do an about-turn. Imagine the horror of the guy in that incoming vehicle. He is in a hurry and all he can see is chicken dance. So the advice is – JUST CROSS SLOWLY, the drivers will take care of manoeuvring the vehicles. Don’t be a moving target.

5. Don’t hold hands – Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against PDAs (not the electronic kind, the kind that couples do). There is a split second difference between a person in the line of an incoming vehicle and outside it. So don’t drag someone along while you cross. Unless the person is a clueless toddler, let that person decide whether to cross or not.

6. Don’t pretend to be a traffic cop – There are so many not-so-old fellows who have been given the honorary tile of traffic cops… IN THEIR DREAMS. They tend to authoritatively stretch their palms to signal a stop for an incoming vehicle. They also get to decide if they have goofed up and cannot cross, to signal that we should continue driving along. Thanks, but no thanks. You are of no help, but I appreciate the straight face in times of absurdity.

These are the ones I could think of straight off my head. But I am sure there are more. The clueless pedestrian will never cease to amuse me.

‘Raavan’ is not the Mani Ratnam movies of the eighties/nineties where human relationships are painted on the broader context of a social problem (Terrorism in Roja, Underworld in Nayakan). It firmly belongs to the ever-shrinking world of the 21st century and the complexity of interpersonal relationships come to the fore. However, it isn’t a run-of-the-mill revenge drama by the genius either.

It has to be rather seen as a modern interpretation of the timeless epic of Ramayana. On the screen the characters unfold and the motives that drive them help you relate to their counterparts in the classic, leaving a uniquely rewarding experience. Mani has admirably adhered to the characters and have not compromised any of their attributes for the sake of novelty. Yet he brilliantly manages to give a fresh perspective in the climax.

Unlike his earlier films, visuals do not just serve as a aesthetic backdrop. In Raavan, it is visuals that tell the story and essentially the defining character of the movie. The unique camera angles from the sideways shots of a dragon fly to the wings of an eagle in flight conveys a jungle filled with eyes. Yet, Beera the forest brigand is an elusive being momentarily seen and the next moment unseen. A maligned force hiding gloriously in plain sight. An enigmatic presence in the teeming abundance of nature. You realise at once that you are truly in Raavan’s “Golden Lanka”.

Camera falls in love with Ragini, played by Aishwarya Rai, from the moment we find her in a raft. It slowly dives into her emerald green eyes and thus hopelessly smitten. It lazily flirts with her, falls into her tresses and even while it momentarily glances afar, only to longingly pan back to her.

Stuck almost claustrophically in a teeming forest, Ravan heightens your senses to a state of alertness. This sensation is almost killed off thanks to the slow progression of events in the first half. But the visual feast continues till the very end and leaves a lasting impression thanks to the mavericks behind the camera.

You can bet on ARR to effortlessly weave the music and background score into the story. The dominant tribal and folksy elements in the score amplifies the experience. Gulzar’s pen again works its magic and sometimes the story relies too much on that magic. For instance, the motives of the bandits are not fully clear and only revealed through the song ‘Thok De Khilli’. This is rather unfortunate because of the odd placement of the song in the heat of the events.

Thankfully, the story picks up in the second half leading to some unexpected twists. Certain scenes are truly hair-raising (such as Beera confronting Sanjeevani) and Mani rewards you for your patience.

I feel Mani has essentially conveyed the essence of Ramayana which is a study of two legendary heroes Ram and Raavan. In fact, Ram and Raavan are essentially the same heroic personality in two different moral planes by mere turn of events. The motives of Raavan were questionable, yet his conduct was indeed noble. In a different context, the roles may have been reversed and yet one might praise the virtuous characters of one versus the other. It is precisely this irony of the epic that the master story-teller Mani Ratnam has tried to portray.

Addendum: Raavanan Review

One of the major flaws of Raavan (Hindi) was the casting. Abhishek Bachan’s overacting and Vikram’s unconvincing portrayal as the ‘good guy’ left audience confused as these characters had shades of grey.

On the other hand, the casting in Raavanan (Tamil) is perfect to a tee. Vikram’s subtle yet engaging performance, keeps you guessing if this brute is even capable of love. The fire and insanity glowing through his eyes justifying the eccentricities of the character. Prithiviraj perfectly suits the role of the duty bound police officer. Karthik also fits in his whimsical yet likeable character perfectly.

The dialogues are also better in the Tamil version. Cheesy dialogues like ‘Is Beera a Robin hood or a Raavan?’ have been thankfully omitted. Some scenes by Vikram manage to convey the visual narrative better. For e.g. when Veera enters Dev’s tent (which he refers to as his palace), his shock-then-anger reaction to his mirror image is quite interesting. It effectively conveys that the Veera/Dev characters are mirror images of each other.

In a nutshell, Raavan was boring till the end of the first half while Raavanan manage to engage till the very end. It is amazing to find such contrast in the movie experience despite identical screenplay and visualisations. So my recommendation is clear – it’s Raavanan all the way.

I read a very interesting passage from the book about the need for clarity of communications. The book says:

Look at these two messages that address the same idea. One of them should seem very familiar to you.

a. “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace initiatives.”

Or

b. “…put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade.”

The first message sounds similar to CEO-speak of today and is barely comprehensible, let alone memorable. The second message — which is actually from a 1961 speech by JFK — has every element of SUCCESs and it motivated a nation toward a specific goal that changed the world. JFK, or at least his speech writers, knew that abstractions are not memorable, nor do they motivate.

There are many examples where I have read 2 to 3 page/screen emails without understanding a word of what they are trying to say. Communication has deteriorated to the point that we are now extremely thankful when someone can explain the gist of the message in a few words.

The worst thing that can happen is the spread of this culture of obfuscation to the next generation. If that happens, we will lose the art of communicating ideas simply and the real message will be drowned in the noise.

PS: Recently I delivered a talk on Relevance of IT in Business and used Presentation Zen ideas in my slides. The slides were well received and appeared on Slideshare homepage as well.

Getting started with Mercurial: A tutorial

The concluding part of this series will be the installation and typical usage of Tortoise Mercurial, a user friendly GUI front-end for Mercurial. It is commonly referred to as TortoiseHg (the chemical symbol for mercury).

This will be a fairly simple tutorial to follow as each description is followed by a screenshot. These screenshots were taken on Windows XP, but they will be pretty similar in other OSes

Download Tortoise mercurial from the Bitbucket site. There are installables for Windows as well as for Linux. Installation on Windows is fairly straightforward as it is wizard-based.

1. Create a new folder for keeping your art assets. This will be your project folder. In this screenshot (click for a larger image), I have created a project folder for the purpose of composing this series of blog posts. Simply right-click, and select ‘Create Repository here’ under the TortoiseHg sub-menu:

   

2. The defaults in the ‘Create Repository’ dialogs are fine. Just click Create.

   

3. The new repository has been created. That was easy, wasn’t it?

   

4. Now, enter the project folder and view the changes. On some OSes, you might see nothing here. These files are not intended to be seen or modified, hence they might be hidden. You can safely ignore them.

   

5. This is a screenshot of a new file that I am editing (using Emacs editor) inside the project folder. I am ready to check-in this file.

   

6. Now, you will need to add this new file to your repository. Let’s skip that and directly perform a commit. We will be later given a chance to add this file.

   

7. Here you can see our newly added file as unchecked. This means that this file is not yet under version control

   

8. Go ahead and mark the check box next to this file

   

9. In the edit box above, you can add a short comment about this commit. Since this is the initial commit, my comment is simply ‘First Commit’

   

10. Mercurial acknowledges the successful commit with the name(s) of the committed files

    

11. Notice that your file has a green tick icon indicating a successful check-in

    

12. Many hours and many check-ins later, my post is nearly close to completion. I commit this version as well.

    

13. In the commit dialog, notice the Repository Explorer in the menu.

    

14. You can view the history of changes in reverse chronological order. You can right click on any of them to compare the changes or revert back to an earlier version.

    

15. Simply clicking on each version will show the diff (in UNIX format) between the consecutive versions in the lower right window.

    

16. You can perform a revert by selecting the Revert option.

    

17. As indicated by the warning, your current file will be overwritten to an older version. But subsequently you can revert to the latest version as well, so this is not too much of an issue.

    

That’s pretty much all you need to know to use Tortoise Hg. Hope you found this series informative!