What happend at Monaco

Monaco is the only full street track and is always fun to watch formula 1 over here, specially if it is raining. It didn't rain but the race was quite amazing. McLarens were unmatched, Ferrari's were no where in the sight by the end of the race. And I was wondering why. Being a Ferrari fan that is something I dont like to see :)

Anyhow, as per car development was concerned, Ferrari's improved their rear wheel cooling system and McLarens their front aerodynamics.

Now what does that mean for the Monaco race.

1) Rear Wheel cooling efficiency : It is difficult to cool rear wheel when there are excessive decelerations and if the rear wheels are not cooled properly then the braking system does not work properly and it is difficult to have high level of decelerations, which means it is difficult to have high speeds. But at Monaco, where one does not need high speed, so why Ferrari wants to prioritize the rear wheel cooling system ?

2) Downforce : McLarens improved their front wing to increase the downforce so that at steep turns their cars have better control. Seems perfect for Monaco.

Does that mean that Ferrari's don't want to win the Monaco or does not care about the Monaco's race. Not quite right. What I think is that Monaco is a track with lot of uncertainty in terms of weather, crashes, pole position etc. So putting time and resources for this kind of race is not justified, when one already has a good car. In-spite it is to have a long term vision and do the needful that matters the most in other races. So for the next 4 or 5 races, where the straight line speed and a high level of declaration matters the most, Ferrari's have rightly developed their cooling system and collected data for further improvement.
Moreover, with the current engine regulation teams need to make sure they don't overburn, specially if there are realiability issues. And so is the case with Ferrari's where they need to make sure that they keep the cars cool :)

I am really looking forward for Ferrari's to be at the front. Let see

Jet Lag - Interesting research

Some interesting research/discoveries about jet lag

• Viagra !! You heard it right, viagra can help fight jet lag. (Though they have not mentioned whether it should be taken before boarding, during the flight or after landing. Its on reader's discretion I guess :) (details)
• Light your knees (details)
  
  

Good Luck

Fly smart and stay ahead of Jet Lag

The topic is from a recent article from economic times, the link for which is below
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/2070275.cms

It mentions some opinions which do not match with my opinion and findings (based on views of my friends from different countries)
The article mentions following points about jet lag management.

1) ET quotes : Interestingly, flying westwards usually causes less jet lag than flying eastwards. “It has been observed that people who travel against the time zone, as in from Europe or US to India, or India to China, the intensity of a jet lag related problem is higher,” says TK Banerjee, head, National Neuroscience Centre, Kolkata.

My opinion : When someone travel from one time zone to another, mostly he has some business/work related activities that he wants to accomplish, in such scenarios the person more than often is so busy with his business/work related activities that he does not feel the pinch of jet lag.
So a Indian going to west for business/work related activities does not feel the effect of jet lag and that holds true for a American/European going to East for Business/work related activities. So in summary a person going to foreign country does not feel the pinch of jet lag primarily because of
- Involvement with business/work related activities throughout the day and evening
- Excitement of going to a foreign country

I have felt this myself, ie if I go from one place to another in different time zone (irrespective of eastward or westward) and if I am busy, I don't have any jet lags. But if my schedule is not so tight then I can have jet lag, which can last as long as for two weeks.

2) ET quotes : If possible, medicos suggest arriving at the destination by late afternoon and avoiding early morning landings. This will ensure that the person can reach his/her place of stay and sleep.

My opinion : One definitely wants to avoid early morning landings since there might be meetings/appointments etc in the morning or during the afternoon, and flight delays/flight exertion can be a spoil sport. But late afternoon a day before is definitely a NO NO. Typically after we land, we spend next 2-5 hours, getting out of airport, reaching destination and checking in/settling in, meals etc., and then there is a strong desire to sleep, primarily because of exertion. So if someone lands in the afternoon, by evening he is fast asleep and then the night becomes difficult. So the ideal time would be evening, so that one can go to sleep just after dinner and wake up next morning, go for meetings/work etc.

3) ET quotes : “A week before the trip, the person should try to advance the sleeping time from say 11 pm to 8 pm in a phased manner. The person should also go out in the sun early in the morning and avoid bright light exposure in the evening,” Mr Ramasubban says. It is better to avoid sleeping pills during the flight.

My Opinion : Does not work. I personally have tried this, it depends a lot on what you do during the flight. Sometimes and for some people it is difficult to sleep during the flights, no matter how much tired or sleepy they are. So as soon as these people land the first thing that they do is to sleep. Typically even if a person is able to sleep during the trip, assuming he is on economy class, he is so exerted that he can easily take another 6-8 hours of sleep.
So the best thing to do, if you are reaching in the evening, is not to worry about what to do during the flight, stay relaxed, watch movie, play games, read novels, sleep etc.

But if you are reaching during the afternoon or morning, then good luck :)

4) ET quotes : Though several over-the-counter drugs may be available in foreign countries for jet lag, it is advisable to avoid them. However, one particular drug — melatonin — is prescribed across the globe to treat jet lag.

My opinion : I am not sure about drugs, since I have never used. But my friends tell me that it helps. So again good luck.

Some of the things that helps

- If possible for for a flat bed business class. You dont have to worry even if you are reaching in the morning :)
- If possible go for an airline which has least traffic, you might be lucky to get the 3-4 seats empty where you can stretch yourself.
- Prefer an airline with personal TV, so that you can manage your time effectively.
- Lastly and most importantly stay relaxed.
- For long flights of more than 15 hours, if possible take a break of 5-6 hours at transit station and have a nap/sleep/shower.

Well these are again primarily based on my views and my travel frequency across time zone difference of more than 8 hours is once per month, on an average and I am doing this from last 1 year.

Still I suffer from jet lags !!

Best Deal

We all purchase commodities, and for some of those we prefer to have the best deal possible. Typically these kind of commodities are expensive commodities (again definition of expensive changes from person to person), which we buy once in a while or may be once in life time. As a human nature, once wants best deal atleast for these kind of commodities. (Best deal might least price with best quality, best post sales service etc or a combination of these).

At times we ourself don't know or don't understand how to define best deal. We might consider few factors (factors defining the best deal) while making a decision, which actually might not be the factors for the best deal provided we knew or have considered other factors, or else even if we wanted to consider other factors we might not have sufficient information about other factor which could have helped in our deal decision.

For example, suppose I want to buy an 160GB 2.5" external hard disk. The factors that I would consider

• Price
• User reviews
• Warranty (is warranty covered all over the world, duration of warranty etc)
• Post sales support
• Compatibility (with laptop/PC etc)
• Time (is the best period of buy or should I wait few more days)
• Companies/Brands/Models
• Ease of use
• etc

So depending on person, different factors might have different weightage. I personally would give higher weightage to Brand, Price, Warranty, Time, with first having highest weightage.

So if someone can help me to educate on a particular product then it would be of great help. For certain products there are sites which provide such kind of information, but more often than not they don't cover all the factors, mostly it is the price comparison that is done, moreover they don't cover whole range of products. So if a site is made where you can define the factors that you want to consider and the weightage can be assigned to each factor and depending on that the site does some kind of optimization to find the product, I guess this kind of site would be a big success and will be of great help.

In today's world, the key to success is product differentiation and customization with prodviding highest value to the customers.

Semiconductor Devices

When I was in Taiwan, I was told that one can find the cheapest external hard disk there. Space is something which is never enough in today's world. So I went with one of my friends to get a small 2.5" one. I was surprised to find that in a months time the prices 160GB external hard disk has fallen by 30USD, one month before it was priced at 160USD and I bought it at 130USD, including the SATA casing. And so was the case with flash drives. I know that the technology nodes are going down, but thats once in a year, whats the reason for such a huge decline in prices ?

Some facts about the semiconductor industry :

• Profit margins of Toshiba and Samsung, flash device makers, have fallen from 15% to 7% in a period of one year. So in 2007 they were operating at much lower margins so obviously in order to maintain the same or more profit margins then they need to produce more. As a result equipment vendors witnessed thier revenues more than expected.
• Sandisk and Toshiba have built up one of the large ts manufacturing plant in Japan.
• Taiwan, Singapore, Japan have seen huge investments.
• Globalization is taking place at an ever faster pace. That is different companies are sharing their products and technologies, which reduces the cycle time between R&D and product roll out. As a result we have seen across the last few years that every year on an average the technology node goes down. I remember when I first joined this industry, production was for 90nm, after one year all the major players had shifted to 65nm. And soon 45 nm will the the fag.

In semiconductor industry, product manufacturers have to rely heavily on demand forecasts, because it takes 2-3 months to roll out a product. Small errors in demand forecasts can lead to huge inventory buildups and the simple theory of demand and supply can lead to huge price discounts.

Intriguingly what will happen if this trend goes on ?

Lost

The travel agent had given up, there were no tickets from San Francisco to India, but luckily Singapore Airlines sales were able to get one for me with a marginal cost, as always I had a very good experience with them and was very happy with the very thought of being back to my home and to meet my parents. I had planned for this trip from a long time and everything was going smoothly. Until a mistake from my company's mailing department, resulted with my passport lost. They had mistakenly posted a mail with no address, containing my passport and as a standard US Postal mail for which there is no tracking available.

It hurts.

Anyhow, according to wikipedia, posts with no mailing address go to a Mail Recovery System, located in Minnesota, where mails are opened in person and routed back if they find mailing information. Again this entire process can take from few weeks to few months.
Few things to note about US Postal
-- 100's of mails get lost everyday and never reach their destination
-- Standard shipping can get as long as 2 weeks to reach from one place to another, forget about getting it back.
-- Mail Recovery Center gets around 7000 mails everday. I am not sure how much is the back lag.

These things make me jittery.

The other option ie to get a duplicate passport is not big of a issue, since it takes few days, the main problem is getting all the visa's, stamped which might take months. Probably, I will wait for sometime before I go for a duplicate one.

This is a very good example of how a small mistake can lead to a very very big problem.