DAtum

EDA, Software and Business of technology
Greek, 'loxos: slanting. To displace or remove from its proper place
da·tums A point, line, or surface used as a reference


                        ... disruption results in new equilibria


You mess with one of us...you mess with all of us

10/29/2005
Bomb blasts @ Diwali shopping markets, October 29 2005


The resounding images being that of Delhi-ites pulling out people from debris and helping to carry injured on their shoulders.




We will fuck back.

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Bernanke's gonna go up in a 'copter

10/24/2005
New York Times announced a few minutes ago that Ben Bernanke would be succeeding Pope Greenspan as the Federal Reserve Chairman.
Bernanke is famous for his helicopter drop governance principle. In his speech in 2002, he has interesting viewpoints on deflationary recession.
Deflation is a side-effect of drop in consumer spending, and therefore demand. In response to falling demand, producers have no choice but to reduce prices to ramp-up sales. This deflation of prices eats at profit and operating margins of producers, thereby affecting the unemployment rate, industrial growth, etc.
In response to deflation, a country's financial regulatory authority usually decreases interest rates - to promote spending and to encourage citizens to look for alternative investment areas.

But the concept that was way too cool was - nominal interest rate hitting zero. In an extreme situation, nominal lending rate might hit zero, but it still might be prohibitively expensive for someone to borrow money. This is if deflation is prevalent across the entire economy causing the repayment to be made in dollars that have a purchasing power much higher than what you borrowed. (!!)
Now, according to conventional wisdom, once nominal interest rate hits zero, there is further scope for the regulatory to do anything but wring their hands in despair. But Bernanke's thesis goes on to the printing-press theory.
By increasing the number of U.S. dollars in circulation, or even by credibly threatening to do so, the U.S. government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services..

Therefore fueling demand. Is this just a theory?
The Conspiracy
In 2003 and the first quarter of 2004, the Japanese govt. printed several trillion yen. This yen was used by the Bank of Japan to purchase US Govt securities at very low prices. Coupled with tax-cuts by the Bush administration, this led to to savings-glut led surplus turning into a spending deficit within a few years. Increased consumer spending in the US caused Asian economies to accelerate, who in turn used their dollars to settle their deficit with Japan.
The circuit is complete.
Is Bernanke's theory sound? I dont know.. but it sure is cool!!

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When VC's turn evil

10/23/2005
Bill Burnham blogs about the VC investment process in Datapower and the happy ending.
It was very interesting that sometimes VC's can gang up together and force an entrepreneur to accept funding at their terms or valuations. Even the comments section of Bill's post has one about someone who had to seek funding from out-of-area, to get a better deal.
Problem is, that in case initial investors dont invest in the startup, it is a warning flag for other VC's. This way, a group of VC firms can armtwist a small company into giving it all up.
I'm curious as to how the Datapower guys handled it - did they tell Mobius Capital that they were trying to look for a better deal? What was it that they gave as explanation for not accepting the original investors term sheet?

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Explicit construction of class object (not pointer to class object)

10/22/2005
Consider the following piece of code:



#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>
using namespace std;

class SSS{
public:
SSS(){
printf("Calling constructor\n");
}
};

typedef struct test{
SSS s1;
}test;

int main(){
test *t1;
t1=(test*)malloc( sizeof(test)*1);
return 0;
}



Does the constructor of the class get called?
Nope.

Then how do you do it. The problem is, how do you explicitly call the constructor of a class object that is defined but not constructed. Usually, class objects are constructed as soon as they are declared. For e.g.
SSS s1;

The above will immediately call the constructor of SSS. However, this is a case where objects are declared, but not constructed. And there is no easy way to construct it now.

First of all, this is bad design. If there is ever a necessity to explicitly declare a class object but construct it only later, then a pointer to a class should be used.
However, this is comes from another problem that I encountered.
Legacy code.
Ah yes. the bane of any code writers existence. While code can almost be thought of a s poetry, this, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing short of blasphemy.

In any case, the solution is not very difficult - placement new operator.
Take a look at the modified code:



#include <stdio.h>

#include <stdlib.h>
using namespace std;

class SSS{
public:
SSS(){
printf("Calling constructor\n");
}
void* operator new(size_t size, SSS* s2){ //<-- need to overload

printf("Calling operator new\n");
return (malloc(sizeof(SSS)*1));
}
private:
int n;
};

typedef struct test{
SSS s1;
}test;

int main(){
test *t1;
t1=(test*)malloc( sizeof(test)*1);
new(&t1->s1)SSS; //<---- how cool is that

return 0;
}



The key is overloading the new operator and calling the placement new operator in a weird way:
new(&t1->s1)SSS


Again... bad design.


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Fly like a bird

10/16/2005
2 hours 25 minutes 30 seconds
That's my ChampionChip electronic time today. 21.097 km in 145 minutes - I missed my target by 20 minutes, but what the hell.
Running is like fighting in the ring - after a while you become concentrated on just the next step, the next punch. It is like meditation, with the body and the mind.
I paced 14 km with an Italian guy. We watched each others pace constantly. And we were cheered on by the multitude (It also helped that my companion used to urge them on.. qite vocally!!). After 15km, it became sort of surreal, I could not feel very well, just knew I had to run. Especially the run down Rajpath... wow.
Never stopped..never broke the pace, even when we had to run up a flyover. When I sprinted the last mile... well, Lance Armstrong helped me along. I could hear Captain Nemo
There I am independant. There I am finally free!


Oh and the cute cheerleaders helped too... I'll blame my excessive endorphins today for being such a shameless flirt.

Music Trance by Lagoona

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Marathon training: Week 2

10/12/2005
Could only go upto 10 KM in 55+ mins. Also have a bad case of bleeding due to the shirt chafing my skin.
Note to self: get bandaids for the run.

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(Re) Looking at your company

10/08/2005
I discovered this post by Sramana Mitra.
It is about taking a critical look at the problematic child of a VC's investment portfolio.
I however see it another way - I see it as the information, a founder must always have at his/her fingertips. I feel this way after being inspired by another piece by Bob Parsons (founder, GoDaddy).

The whole point? It can be boiled down to :


Everything that is watched improves


Parsons takesa a leaf out of the life of John D Rockefeller - who was famed for his minute knowledge of all things oil. He was probably the only person in Standard Oi, who knew exactly how much it costs to extract, refine and bring to market, a barrel of oil. This, in the days before Excel.
Similarly, out of Sramana's points, I feel a few are the ones that should be worked upon.
  • Which Market? How big is the Market? Why?

  • What Value does the Customer see? What Price can you charge based on Perceived Value?



Both of the above points are related to pricing. There is a problem with these points as compared to the others.
For example, resolving conflicts in Sales Channels, How to define Lead Sourcing/Generation/Qualification, etc. are solved problems.
The issue with pricing is, only the founders should be qualified enough to fix a price - they know what their technology is and they know who to sell. Pricing is a problem, that if attempted to be solved by sales guys or code monkeys will result in a F***edCompany.
The other thing that I feel is a tough problem to solve is
  • What are the key additional hires / timeframe?


No matter how good you are, you cant do everything. However, it is an extremely tough problem to acquire new brains. Especially in a startup, where you may have to pay a lot more than they are actually worth.
  • measure and watch everything of significance

Another point by Parsons. Sounds paranoid, but as a founder helps you give clear warning signals. For example, in a software company, a very plausible scenario is where a core module is being delayed causing all other modules to be delayed. However, as a founder you would trust your lieutenants to get the job done.
What if it is'nt? What if the lieutenant bit off more than he/she bargained for?
As a founder, I think I should know about it much much before it is beyond salvage. How about a metric to measure the lines of code committed everyday in each branch, in each module. Will this help me to flag warnings?
I dont know, but I think it will.


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