Crucial Conversations

Each of us enters conversations with our own opinions, feelings, theories, and experiences about the topic at hand. this unique combination of thoughts and feelings makes up our personal pool of meaning. This pool not only informs us but also propels our every action.

As people sit through an open discussion where ideas are shared, they take part in the free flow of meaning.

from Crucial Conversations

New Terms, New Discussions

Muscle Memory: On discussion between cricket and baseball, Siddharth was talking how inspite of the similarity of the two games, the way you are used to hold the bat is the key to play the game. Muscles thus, have a memory, bodies thus, behave in certain specific ways.

Dogfood: My cousin was explaining me the way many tech companies go about evaluating their own products. Many CEOs would go by the question - "Will you eat your own dogfood," essentially asking "Will you use your own product."

Frustration Free Packing: Going nuts over opening a recently ordered telephone shower, my cousin was frustrated after using all kinds of objects to undo its plastic case. He thus told me about the concept of packaging things in a way such that they are convenient to unpack, open (read without the use of external objects like sharps, knives, scissors, too much pulling, crushing, tearing, and so on). Amazon, my cousin informs, markets a lot of products for its frustration free packaging.

On Intuitive Design: Another question we stumbled upon is the idea behind intuitive design in mobile phones. We debated what would it mean for mobile phones to make its design and use intuitive. We discussed that it involves translating a host of cognitive object-action relationship and behaviour into the virtual world? It is about transferring the real physical space of the object into the virtual world, trying to keep the engagement of the user still similar. While some linkages are certainly broken (for example our tactile understanding of objects and things that are no longer physical), they are replaced by newer visual or other cognitive definitions. For example, the replacement of paper letters and envelopes by e-mails as communication devices is cognitively established in the virtual space by icons that will consist of "envelop", "pencil" and such other diagrams. What intuitively is at work here is the visual mental association, and not the tactility of the object, which is actually taken over by the computer screen and keyboard. The paper translates as a flat rectangular outline box on the screen, sometimes even virtually textured or ruled. However, the keyboard certainly fundamentally changes the way in which we write. Thus, an intermediate level of intuition is achieved where the material qualities of paper and pen are ascertained through their symbolic existence.

(more terms to follow)

Stanford University

I find fascinating to visit University campuses. Over the last two weeks, I had the opportunity to visit University of California, Berkeley as well as Stanford University. 

Here are some pictures from our visit to Stanford. Considered to be the ivy league of the West coast in USA, like the ones of the North East, Stanford's physical character is absolutely different. The first impression that all of us got on entering the campus is that of a hotel resort - with large lawns, topiary gardens and sloping roof in clay tiles - the university's image was nothing short of a holiday resort. The school is situated in Palo Alto, one of the most prosperous suburbs of the Bay Area. The suburb is known for its high end family homes neighbourhoods.

One is greeted with a large 'S' for Stanford grown in red leaves with sinuous serpentine curves - something which had a tendril-like curling quality. We all were unanimously put off by its execution, and in our own exposure and growing up in the environment of the ivy leagues of the north-east, this aesthetic expression was laughable. Apparently this landscaping of the 'S' keeps on changing every-time. 

The school buildings are nestled within the green, although flat landscape, where the campus tries hard to be stately and modern at the same time. One gets an uncanny feeling of tropical ashrams, with almost outscaled courtyards centered with large evergreen spreading trees. I don't have much to really talk about this place, since we didnot have an opportunity to wander much inside the buildings. Except that we did sneak into the D-school. 

Stanford is famously know for its interdisciplinary D-school, ie, the Design School. The nature of the school was like an open space, where different kinds of people can collaborate on problems through the platform of design. There was a looming blandness of the digitality of cyberspace in the actual physical environment of the D-school. Flat white surfaces to be written upon, movable furniture, post-its, cubicles and limpy blackboards - everything as etheral and unstable as the flash of pages on a website composed the atmosphere. The wateriness or the fluidity of all objects in space took me some time to appreciate, although I wasn't sure if I got it right! 

Somehow, the post-it aesthetic (people writing mini lists and thoughts on small square colourful stick-ons pasted onto the walls) is highly overrated. Look at every design thinking wesbite today and you will find a representational picture of "thinking" in the form of a constellation of post-it pink-fluorescent green-yellow notes! To sum it up, they have literally "reduced" design thinking to keywords that can be contained into strips of paper. I have a whole theory of the post-it aesthetic, which I am being bombarded with every now and then as I visit these design places. I wonder if they have tie-ups with the post-it note manufacturing industry!

In any case, I think I might visit the campus once again to know it better and also look at its art-gallery. I have noticed that the West Coast is much behind than the North East in the US in its cultural production and aesthetic standards. Rather, much of the thrust is on the aesthetic of the virtual space.  There are some awkward gaps in the physical spaces here, which I hope I am able to articulate eventually on sustained observation of this place.

California in Saturation

These are pictures around neighbourhoods of San Jose, single family homes in the American Suburbia. No sign of life around the pretty looking houses with elaborate gardened porticoes, even when the weather is beautiful, bright and sunny. Trees flank all along. Some shed their leaves in winter, although many are evergreen, giving the whole place a homely feel. Being in the valley, the area is generally bereft of the sea humidity. It is drier and picturesque. The mountains become the backdrop in all vantages, giving a focus to look at in most directions. The life is secure and contained within the valley. 

The experience of seeing is relaxed, there is not too much going on anywhere. The intensity of activity is controlled, moreso in the suburbs. The city - San Francisco - itself is very at-ease. It is quite different from the pretense and oomph of New York, at least as much as I saw it.

Trains pass around mountains, taking through breathtaking views of settlements on slopes of the valley. Greenery is all around, nestling the colourful houses. Again, no sign of life outside the houses in the suburbs. The brightness meanwhile makes it nicer to be outside. No more descriptions. Still to understand much more!

Caltrain, California

This is not a well rounded post. The opinions here are narrow and ill-informed. 

1.

I am at the Tamien Caltrain station in South Bay Area and there is a train for 5 58 pm that I am supposed to take. A train is waiting right in front of me for the last 15 minutes and I am not sure if this is the one i am to board. There are no indications on the train to match the information displayed on the electronic indicator! I ask the only man sitting on a bench at the station, who tells me this is not the one mentioned on the electronic display. 

When no other train arrives until the time in the schedule, except the one standing, I climb into it following another passenger (who herself was confused) and hope that it will be the train I need to board. A few minutes later, i realize that it is indeed the train I had to take, quite contrarily to what the waiting passenger on the station bench directed.

The Caltrain is a double-decker train with a central aisle. There are two seats each on either aisle on the lower level and one row of seats on each side on the upper. Absolutely empty probably since it is the opposite direction for the time. The young lady equally perplexed if the train is San Francisco bound, came and asked me to confirm if I ended up taking the right train. I told her that I confirm only based on the fact that it departed on the time I checked on the schedule.

The landscapes I pass through are beautiful. No one came to check my ticket. I was surprised. The announcements within the train were unclear, fuzzy, although surprisingly not standardized (like the recent ones in our local trains in Mumbai). For that matter, the announcements even in New York metro trains were not standardized. The stations try to match the level of the surrounding road, rather than the height of the train. You actually climb 4 steps to reach the level of the train. I haven't seen how the disabled actually climb up, although there are provisions for them within the train.

2.

Bay Area: The California bay around San Francisco. Peninsula region.

VTA: Valley Transit Authority

Valley: popularly the Silicon Valley. Geographically, this is actually a valley. Silicon refers to technology parks.

Caltrain: California Train, transportation service along the bay area

BART: Bay Area Rapid Transit, private transportation service along the bay area

Clipper Card: Pass for Caltrain and some other public transport services around Bay Area

Map of Caltrain in Bay Area


3.

The San Jose Caltrain station ticket vending machines / card identifying machines didn't accept either my clipper card pass or my credit card. Luckily I had some cash with me to get a ticket for San Francisco. I went up to the Amtrack dept ticket counter to ask if there was any person who could help me with my problem. However the lady flatly refused saying, "There is no one for Caltrain" in a curt tone, perhaps rightly as if it was none of her business to look into it. This is what you learn to expect out of Americans or American culture in general after living in US for two years. In fact I was quite impressed when out of the same indifference she pointed me to the ATM from where i could withdraw cash to try in the faulty machines.

All how I responded to her was with a gracious smile and a hearty thank you, although swearing by the dumbness of such etiquette in my head at that moment.  Before I move on with my analysis, I must finish explaining how I resolved the situation. After I exhausted all possible mental algorithms of trying all machines, clipper card sensors at the station, I thought of using cash, for which I was skeptical of getting the change back. (buses here in the US will never return you any change. so if your ticket costs $2 and you insert a $5 bill, your $3 are gone - essentially more lost than spent). I was thus skeptical about the Caltrain vending machines too. However it was kind enough to return me my 1 dollar. And thus, Inspite of preparing for my trip to SF in advance and working out cheaper logistics, getting a clipper card pass that would have saved me about 2 dollars one way, I ended up spending cash that I had saved up for emergency. (again remember that you seldom use cash in USA, since you have credit cards for most transactions. In addition, withdrawal of cash from atms costs you 2.5$ each time. its a lot of money in proportion to what you generally withdraw).

However, such inconsistencies in technology and its non-alignment with human dilemmas is what i despise about the over hyped development in the developed countries. I have, over time, trained my mind to get over such first world issues. Although in the pretext of streamlining and smoothening infrastructures, look what happens. There was no one around the station whom I could ask about whether my pass was faulty or if there was a problem with my credit card - both which i had recently purchased or used respectively. there was no one amongst the commuters to help. There was no one I could call. No one at the station - completely unmanned. I was disturbed at the irony of this first world situation - the mythicised glorified narrative of the developed country. in computerizing every inch of interaction into unmanned infrastructure, they continue to erase all physical social exchange leaving vulnerability looming all over - something that is never documented, or even lapped up in the over optimistic dialogues of development.

I am skeptical of technology and development in this light. I worry about this creeping sense of insecurity that latently exists among people in anticipation of overcoming or even coming to terms with technology. Because technology skips the older logical methodical steps that people are used to, quite exponentially, marketing itself as easy to access and "user friendly" it never presents its parallel narrative of the confusion it creates within the minds people. There is also a great politics of such confusion often overlooked by technologists, the advantage of which clearly goes to the company. for example, consider the extra dollars I shelled out to Caltrain inspite of all my preparation - that money essentially went to the company just because of what i like to term as politics of technology.

People living here in west coast America are overly car dependent, thus the government excuses itself of investment in public transport. (People rightfully depend on their own vehicles, since the minimum walk from one place to another will be 20 minutes, and you will feel absolutely at loss of scale while walking on wide highways - I am also talking of my experience in the suburbia, but SF too was largely spread wide apart). Except big cities, getting around this country is a big ordeal. But the difficulty of travel in the US is a narrative explicated by far too many people. What i want to point out is that people/locals thus look down upon public transportation and even those who use it. I was being mocked upon by my landlord when I would take the city buses to travel around in New Haven - "Only poor people and blacks use the buses," he said. At that time i wasn't mature enough to accuse him as a racist. But such is the sentiment that runs across people in the country. Thus, in my perspective, owing to such social pressure must also make many people to move privately. Although I feel such sentiment to public transport is only prevalent in some cities. New York is a very public-transport friendly city. 

However stories for other states and cities across the US are different. What is different here is that people almost don't care to keep a tab about public transportation for emergency situations. They just don't know anything about local ways of getting around - something I have never experienced in my life. Umm - well they depend on Google to tell them routes all the time. Google is their Godfather. Certainly this is a result of both - the individualistic social space as well as the already existing poor image of public image of transportation facilities.

Rightfully then, the Marxists of this country shout for public space and public transport and all those issues of green-ness and sustainability. But we absorb these narratives of the developed lands blindly, without understanding their socio-cultural underpinnings. In fact we never understand how adoption of their narratives and systems would eventually affect our own socio-cultural space, and do ever think if we truly desire it? And do they really apply to us. In what way do they apply, and how should we think about our issues, even if the solutions to the problems may be same?

Perhaps I come from a background where I have had an opportunity to associate a lot of positive attributes to the social space in Indian cities. Or probably I am just a person who relies and trusts real people than a dumb machine who cannot argue back intelligently. Many of my friends like being around such dumb machines, or have begun to enjoy this sterile life within which they can exert their choices without friction. they consistently attempt to convince me of staying back in this unmanned neutralised techno physical space. I am not sure I like it, even if the space in India physically or personally destroyed me. Living here is a mental torture sometimes for a person like me - for some, it is an escape to heaven.

Farewell to New Haven

Last week I left New Haven, and the sacred space of Yale University. I left the beautiful looking buildings, the well kept lanes, the green campus, the finally-warming up weather, the lush museums...In short, I finally escaped the pretty trap Yale. Not to forget that I left a whole bunch of friends behind - people whom I believed to be my family at Yale, who brought to me a culture I longed for, forever, in traces and parts. Although it wasn't overwhelming to leave Yale. I was quite done with it, and I was content of absorbing it as much as it offered me. I needed a change of place for sure.

I collected a lot of notes, cards and gifts from all of my friends before leaving. Neelima visited me over a weekend from New York, and we did almost nothing but talked. I met a lot of friends I might perhaps never see again. I realized that I had made far too many friends than I would expect myself to be knowing. These included classmates, senior students, post doctoral fellows, colleagues from work places beyond of course, friends from the desi community. Each person contributed something to my life in one way or the other. I wrote numerous card notes myself. It was a pleasure to be writing notes after a really long time for people.

Apart from packing, there were lots of things I did in the last three weeks at Yale. Every weekend, we explored different places - from hiking to strawberry picking - thanks to Anumeha's newly occupied car! She took us around a lot of places, and I truly realized what an experience living in the US could be with a personal vehicle! My radius of exploration was pretty limited earlier to the extents Yale shuttle covered.

On another note, I had learnt a lot of Yale, and thought of writing a post enlisting tricks to survive in New Haven. However, I soon realized that my way of living over the two years at Yale was something that not many people would like to imitate or follow. Coming from a middle-class financially constrained background, I might be too strict and limited in my overview, and might not make good case for a person who was coming to experience and enjoy the university life. I decided that it must be left to the individual to explore Yale on his/her on terms. But I do think that living with room-mates, especially those who have grown up in the US can fundamentally change your attitude towards being and even exploiting what the place really has to offer. I was slightly unfortunate since I didnot live ever with "roommates"!

I still don't know how to look back at Yale, for I am too absorbed perhaps in making the immediate future work. I have moved to California bay area, to live with my cousin, searching for jobs here. I decided to come here so that of all things that may fail, I may at least explore a new place. The frictions of new place are the same as before - understanding a new transportation channel, the eccentricities of new geography, new work culture and so on. Although, after New York, this seems far negotiable. I am slow at taking things, and not guilty of expressing my under-information. I am taking my sweet time to learn California. However, life is much convenient when living with a family member who can guide for everyday things.

I haven't made much observations on California, except that it is seriously hard to get around here. And yes, it is more suburban than any one can every imagine! The public transportation can eat up all your time, leaving you with no time at hand. I live in a suburb 60 miles away from San Francisco meanwhile, in San Jose. So I haven't really seen what the city life is like. I am sure it is better and more vibrant than here. I am eager to understand what 'laid back' really means. And I am certain that it will make more sense to me coming from the competitive north east culture of the US. I am looking forward to experience the vibrancy of SF, a city I will be visiting tomorrow.

Mobility in the city pushes you to think and write, and there is something about the initial navigation within a new city. You are overloaded with new-ness and the comparisons with the cities you have visited in the past are so fresh that you want to record them. Many of these are often documented earlier by various people. Still, a cultural perspective colours these experiences for every individual in unique ways. I am going to try to record them. I have grown out of taking pictures of places. I don't know if it is the complacency of the place itself that has transcended into me, or the highly standardized spatial products that keep me back from really documenting these new places photographically.

For the time being, I can say that California, San Jose is absolutely different from any other place I have visited in the US. It is Mediterranean, gentle weather (which people still find warm these days), lots of light and greenery, and a distinctly spanish feel with the low hanging country-tiled roofs of most houses. Buildings are designed for cars first. Thus everything is far apart, and spread out. Any walk is a minimum of 20 minutes. The reference for space-time is the car, not the pedestrian. Thus, minimum distances to places begin counting in kilometers, not metres. I am still getting to terms with the public transport, and may be I could write my next post on the experience at SF, and the trip I will take tomorrow.