Pixsense Shutting Down?

There are rumors that Pixsense is shutting down its development center in Pakistan; thus laying off several of its engineers. It's weird that the company's career's page still lists down various vacancies as of today.

Sony FP85

I recently bought a Sony FP 85 photo printer from Bahdarabad (Karachi). The printer cost me Rs. 14K without the cartridge. A cartridge with paper to take 40 snaps was bought for an additional Rs. 1,200/-

But the more interesting thing is the shopping experience. Firstly the guy there was knowledgeable about the gadget but he didn't have any other model to compare. He compensated that by quickly taking a snap of me with a nearby Cybershot and printed it through the printer. The print quality, however, was not good enough. Any ways, when I decided to buy it, that's where surprises started to happen.

"After" creating the invoice, they told me that they didn't have the model readily available in the inventory---despite the fact that I confirmed its availability just before making the decision. Then I was told that this could be arranged from the Zamzama outlet but I'd have to wait for 2 hours. Another option given to me was that they would deliver the thing at my home. Since I had to give that as a gift to my wife, I opted for this choice. The next surprise was that they charged 2.1% extra on my credit card.

The delivery time given to me was 9pm. Before leaving I insisted upon punctuality and the response from the manager was that "the delivery guy won't come before 9pm" but for late arrival he couldn't set an upper limit.

What an interesting country!

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PS: The results of this printer are good enough for an amateur photographer, and the printer itself has some excellent value-added features.

PS 2: The cost of printing a snap is around Rs. 30 (includes paper and cartridge), which is quite expensive in my opinion.

Outlook Attachment Sniffer

Sometimes you wish working with attachments in Outlook was easier! I specially desist the situation where somebody sends me an email with lots of emails as .msg attachments, each one in turn containing further attachments; I have to open up and save each message separately!

I have tried but have never given enough time to automate MS Office but I could tell that somebody else would have faced similar problems, and created a solution. Some time spent on Google resulted in discovery of a 30-days trial version of Outlook Attachment Sniffer, developed by a German company. It's a real gem!

A Tale of Two Holy Cities

A quick 26 days tour of Makkah and Madina during Hajj 1431 taught me some new things in life. Each foreign visit broadens up your vision of the world, and tells you a few things you never learn from the media and the books.

Makkah Mukarma turned out to be very different from the image I had in my mind. To my surprise, it's a hilly area with very warm weather; it felt hot even in November. At the least, the area surrounding the Ka'aba consists entirely of mountainous terrain. There is almost no greenery, which makes me wonder where did they keep camels in this city!

Besides the hot weather and the relatively difficult terrain, there were thousands and thousands of pilgrims, which to some extent made it challenging to move around during rush hours---mainly the five prayer timings.

Amongst other impressions modified by this visit includes the commonly held belief that "Saudis, because of being Wahabi's, have lack of empathy for other sects/ interpretations of Islam." While this remains true to a large extent even today, I could witness some completely unheard of events: A group of young Shiites (perhaps Hezbollah members?) slanting "Labaik Ya Hussain" while performing Tawwa'f of Khana-e-Kaa'ba; Ayatollah's from the US; a huge gathering of Lebanese Shiite's on 7th Zilhajj and recitation of Sura-e-Baraat by them. Very rarely but surely one could find Muttawas holding and beating pilgrims who, according to them, were performing acts of shirk.


Madina left an impression very different from Makkah---firstly, it wasn't too populated since Hajj days were over; secondly, the weather was chilly. There was a sense of peace and calm in the city, and the city also seemed to be much more developed as compared to Makkah.

I specially liked the area around Masjid-Zu-qiblatain; extremely peaceful environment with modern shopping arcade at some distance and a small, very beautiful park close by. Yet, the visit to Madina wasn't without surprises either. On 18th Zilhaj, when we tried to go to Masjid-e-Nabawi (Salallaho Alay'he Wa Aal-e-hi Wassalam) after Isha prayers, we were not only stopped from entering the mosque, rather forcefully pushed away by Saudi Army. The mosque was sealed by Saudi armed forces and people were being drove away! After some time, we realized that only Irani passport holders were allowed to enter the mosque and the rest of the nationalities were forbidden. This was one of the most unimaginable thing for me.

Later, it was found out that on this particular night Irani pilgrims pray Dua-e-Kumail, and they are handed over the mic of the mosque for a few hours! The army was there to make sure that Iranis do not go beyond what's agreed with the Saudi government.

And the complete list of surprises includes the flood in Jeddah as well as the threat now Saudi government feels from Yemeni rebels.

A bonus informative point is that Madina hosts Sheikh Amri. Getting more information on this person is worth your time!

Book Review: Predictably Irrational

"Predictably Irrational" is what I classify as an "idea book." It's a good read by all means. The central theme of the book by Dan Ariely is twofold; firstly, human beings are not rational---they don't make the most logical choice---and secondly, the dimensions of this irrationality are predictable. Most of the content of the book surrounds "behavioral economics." Dan basis his claims around several "experimental studies" carried out on undergrad students in a few universities of the US (and some other people as well); however, I am not particularly impressed by the details---Dan doesn't discuss the "sample size" of his experiments.

What is genuinely interesting are the areas Dan picks up for study (such as "to what extent people are dishonest") and the reasoning he puts behind his claims---the experiments are a mere reinforcement of his believes.

The book is divided into the following chapters:

1. The Truth about Relativity: Dan argues that to make sound judgments, human beings are bound to make relative comparisons; marketers can exploit this fact by providing decoy choices. There is an excellent example of "web based" and "print" subscriptions of The Economist. The conclusion drawn is that one shouldn't fall pray to unconscious and unnecessary comparisons specially related to his social status or earnings.


2. The Fallacy of Supply and Demand: Here, Dan states that the principles of "demand" and "supply" (on which conventional economics is based) are not 100% applicable in practice. Human beings "anchor" to their first impressions, specially for the price of things. It's this first impression which matters more than the balance of demand and supply. Here, I believe, that things are oversimplified by not looking at the dimension introduced by "competition."


3. The Cost of Zero Cost: The author conjectures that we are afraid of making unsound decisions, and thus the word "FREE!" is so exciting to us. In actual, there is always some price we are paying for it; be it our time or energy.


4. The Cost of Social Norms: This is perhaps the best topic. Dan states that we live in two worlds---one derived by "market values" and the other one derived by "social values." Tasks, which we think, we are carrying out for market values make us demand more compensation. This includes things like our profession. On the other hand, we get offended if somebody wants to know the compensation required for tasks carried out in the social values context (such as helping a friend pack his stuff). Dan also concludes that the modern office environment mixes these two up to get the best out of human resources but in social lives if we introduce market values, our social lives will be doomed.


5. The Influence of Arousal: This part claims that the decisions we make in "cold" state are different from the decisions we make in the "hot" state; it's like an alternate-ego being activated when we are aroused. The concepts, although primarily related to sex, are applicable to wide range of issues such as rash driving by teenagers, being violent when annoyed, etc.


6. The Problem of Procrastination and Self-Control: On the basis of assignments handed over to undergrad students, Dan shows that without an arbitrary deadline, almost all students procrastinate, and thus, mar there grades. However, with self-imposed deadlines (that is, deadlines chosen by students themselves), results are much better; still, the best results were shown when an external deadline is given to the students. The problem of procrastination can be avoided by building systems where each one of us can keep check on himself, and by making things simpler to remember.


7. The High Price of Ownership: A person selling something values his stuff more than the person buying the same; this is true for "used-stuff" for sale, and mainly so when the seller is not selling out of annoyance, rather because he "has" to sell that something. But a person trying to buy something could also "partially" own (in his mind) the thing he intends to buy. Such kind of "partial ownership before something is bought" is what marketers strive for. One should be wary of his feelings of ownership when he is about to buy something.


8. Keeping Doors Open: The idea of life is to increase your chances of survival. Many people try to keep their options open, and while doing so, spend too much time in maintaining the balance. One should remember that there is a "cost" of keeping your options open, be it a relationship or a career.


9. The Effect of Expectations: Preconceived notions and expectations set by marketing do affect the "real experience" of the end users. If you already believe that something would taste good, it usually tastes better than if you didn't have those expectations.


10. The Power of Price: It's a strange chapter in which Dan talks about placebo treatments; he says, that when a treatment has a high price attached to it, the patient creates his expectations and as a result feels "better" just because of the high price.


11. The Context of Our Character, Part I: The last two chapters treat "dishonesty." Having an oath undertaken doesn't necessarily mean that nobody would violate the oath, but just reviewing such an oath before a chance of dishonesty, unconsciously makes a lot of people honest.


12. The Context of Our Character, Part II: In continuation to the last chapter, Dan believes that more and more people would be dishonest when "indirect ways" of cheating are available. For example, there are more chances of "using a can of coke" without knowing who owns it than picking up some money. Such indirect losses to corporations in the US are much hire than the aggregates of robberies.


13. Beers and Free Lunches: I believe you can safely ignore this chapter. :)

I believe that the book could have been made better in the following ways:

1. The size of the book (around 300 pages) could be reduced by eliminating the last chapter as well as by merging the chapter on "The Effect of Price" with "The Cost of Zero."


2. By reading the details of the experiments, I sometimes felt cheated: it feels as if Dan is bent on trying to prove his ideas by ignoring various factors.

Here is an interesting negative review of the book.