First blog from a mobile!

To be able to communicate to the world what you think at the moment is a wonderful experience. Putting the entire world in your pocket in the shape of a mobile phone is the most empowering act you can think of. These were the feelings which made me seek a cheap phone with qwerty keyboard, java and wap.

I found all three nicely converged in the Onida G720i. Though obviously a Chinese made set, for just Rs. 2350, you can't expect more bang for your buck. After much hackling about connectivity, once I decided to ditch the built-in browser and downloaded Opera Mini 4, it was smooth sailing.

The phone still gives headache like heavy battery consumption while surfing, and probably higher radiation in the form of landline disturbance, I am happy for the time being.

And this is my first blog ever, from a mobile. Have a nice day!

Magical numbers

This is no talisman, but there is indeed magic in numbers.

Friendly numbers (Amicable numbers)

These are pairs of numbers such that each number is the sum of the factors of the other number (including 1, but excluding the number itself). The pair (220, 284) was discovered by the Pythagoreans. In 1636, Fermat discovered (17296, 18416). Descartes located a third pair (9363584, 9437056). Euler made a list of 62 friendly pairs. Curiously, a much smaller pair (1184, 1210) was overlooked by all these giants and was discovered by a sixteen-year-old Italian, Nicolo Paganini.

Sociable numbers

These are sets of three or more numbers which form a closed loop, that is, the factors of the first number add up to the second, factors of the second add up to the third and so on, until the divisors of the last add up to the first. (12496, 14288, 15472, 14536, 14264) is a set of sociable numbers.

Euler conjecture

Similar to the Fermat’s last theorem which stated that

xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ

where n, x, y and z are whole numbers is true, only for n not greater than 2, Euler also conjectured that the equation

x⁴ + y⁴ + z⁴ = w⁴

doesn’t have any solutions. For two hundred years, nobody could prove the conjecture, but on the other hand, nobody could disprove it either. This was finally cracked in 1988, when Naom Elkies discovered the following solution,

2682440⁴ + 15365639⁴ + 18796760⁴ = 20615673⁴

^{Source: Fermat's Last Theorem by Simon Singh}

KSFE: State-sponsored Daylight Robbery

The Kerala State Financial Enterprises (KSFE) is a government-owned personal finance company, headquartered in Thrissur. The company accepts deposits, disburses loans in various segments like housing finance, automobiles, trade and personal loans. One of the most lucrative savings schemes advertised by the firm, and in fact the backbone of the organization, is chitties, of which each branch maintains a lot of schemes. The terms and conditions of the institution in disbursing prized chits are so cumbersome that most of the people prefer to deposit the money in KSFE itself till the tenure of the chitty is over. Recently, I had the opportunity to inspect the chitty passbooks of two chitties of KSFE. The inference is interesting and outrageous at the same instant.

1. Chit No. 12/09, Prize: Rs. 50,000, Instalments: 25, Amount: Rs. 2,000, KSFE’s Commission: 5%

Instalment	Amount Paid (Rs.)	Cumulative (Rs.)
1	2000	2000
2	1858	3858
3	1810	5668
4	1858	7526
5	1848	9374
6	1894	11268
7	2000	13268
8	1940	15208
9	1932	17140
10	2000	19140
11	1952	21092
12	1958	23050
13	1946	24996
14	1956	26952
15	1970	28922
16	1976	30898
17	1974	32872
18	1980	34852
19	1998	36850
20	2000	38850
21	2000	40850
22	2000	42850
23	2000	44850
24	2000	46850
25	2000	48850

The depositor can only get 95% of the chitty amount, deducting KSFE’s 5% commission. In this case, it comes to Rs. 47,500, whereas he has already paid Rs. 48,850! This means that the company robs the unsuspecting depositor of Rs. 1,350.

I thought this specific case to be an exception rather than the rule and looked into another chitty of a larger amount. Here, Prize: Rs. 1,00,000, Instalments: 25, Amount: Rs. 4,000, KSFE’s Commission: 5%

The passbook runs as follows

Instalment	Amount Paid (Rs.)	Cumulative (Rs.)
1	4000	4000
2	3960	7960
3	3820	11780
4	3800	15580
5	3748	19328
6	3744	23072
7	3740	26812
8	3796	30608
9	3794	34402
10	3796	38198
11	3812	42010
12	3850	45860
13	4000	49860
14	3996	53856
15	3920	57776
16	4000	61776
17	4000	65776
18	4000	69776
19	4000	73776
20	3956	77732
21	3988	81720
22	3996	85716
23	4000	89716
24	4000	93716
25	4000	97716

Here, the amount receivable is Rs. 95,000 only, while the company collected Rs. 97,716, pocketing Rs. 2,716 of the depositor’s hard-earned money!

Let’s now compare the yield of other deposit schemes. We take three cases

1. KSFE chitty (our present issue)

2. Recurring deposit in a bank @ 9% interest and quarterly compounding

3. Iron box deposit (simply put the money in an iron box underneath your bed!)

Option	Amount obtainable after 25 months
KSFE	47,500
Recurring deposit	54,732
Iron box deposit	50,000

Even the iron box deposit yields 5.36% more than KSFE!  

I just wonder how the society in Kerala would respond to such an organization should it operate in the private sector? The people in Kerala are boastful of themselves and generally left-leaned, including the centrist UDF supporters, and would accept any injustice, only if it is perpetrated by a government department or public sector enterprise. KSFE is only one of the blood suckers.

The day my Nikon failed me

When hard pressed to buy a digital camera just before going on a vacation to Agra, Punjab and Delhi in 2008, I had few choices in mind. Ever since possessing an analog Nikon F60 from March 1999 onwards, buying another brand was simply out of the question! Nikon had that aura of professionalism, buid quality and rock solid performance. The major drawback levelled against Nikon was its less than sufficient after-sales service in Kerala. But that was not issue for me, basking in the uninterrupted service offered by F60. I had stopped using that camera from around 2007, mainly due to unavailability of film and gradual decline in lens performance as a result of fungal accumulation – the greatest threat faced by any camera owner in the warm and humid Kerala climate.

P5100 is a good camera, but may fail at any instant!

Picking up CoolPix P5100 wasn’t an accidental choice. I’d personally recommended it to a friend three months earlier and was quite impressed by its performance. He got it for Rs. 12,500 (serial number 20411453) and my price tag of Rs. 11,000 (serial number 30442605) was a bit high for the features, but then I thought quality doesn’t come cheap. The camera did its job admirably well during my 10-day trip, making me a satisfield man in finding the right piece of equipment.

My friend’s joy soon turned to sorrow just after one year when its charger failed abruptly. Efforts to get it repaired was foiled and he was forced to buy a new one by coughing up an extra Rs. 1500. Since he bought the camera solely based on my recommendation and judgment, I had to see his long face, but I soothed him, saying it was just an electronic item, which may break down randomly with the dice stopping on him this time.

But, little did I know that my own lot lay next. In June this year, not even three years have not elapsed since the purchase, my own P5100 blinked. The view finder showed a blurred image with a violet hue when switched on, giving no way to figure out the contents of the scene. The playback of saved images in memory was in fine detail as usual. I suspected the CCD sensor to have become faulty.

I searched the Nikon website for a service centre, and lo, I found one in Ernakulam. When contacted, the personnel were very friendly on phone, requesting me to present the camera for inspection, which I duly did the next day. It took only five minutes for the young, ‘experienced’ (!) technician to find the problem with the sensor. He didn’t even open it. But his solution was shocking, designed to burn a big hole in my pocket. He said the entire lens assembly has to be replaced as a group, in addition to the sensor just because Nikon markets it as a single package. “Okay”, I said, “what’s the price?”. “Rs 5,500”, he answered without batting an eyelid, “of course, service charges to the tune of more than Rs. 1,000 will be extra”. I was stunned and at a loss for words. Here am I, expecting something in the range of Rs. 2000-3000, while he attempts to scale Rs. 7,000 for which I could buy a brand new camera with better features! Still I asked him whether they’d give me a 1- or 2-year warranty for the replaced items. ‘No’, he said, “warranty is only for new purchases. However, since you’ve asked, we’d give a guarantee of 1-month, and that too at our own risk and generosity. Let the company doesn’t know this”. Some generosity! Just a minute later, the neighbouring shopkeepers saw an angry man stomping out of the service centre. It was none other than me!

Since my Nikon has left me in the lurch, I tried a private repairing centre. Limra Mobiles is a digital equipment repair shop in the Penta Menaka complex. The master serviceman there quickly identified the problem and consoled me by offering to try for a second-hand item which can be sourced from Delhi. I waited for two months, but nothing came of it. May be the Delhi team was expecting stolen items? At last, I collected the camera back and gave my mobile number, asking him to call if anything came along. I’m still waiting.

So, this may be an indicator of the doomed way Nikon is marketing its products. They have a glorious past, but resting on the laurels won’t save the day for them, if they continue to ride this suicidal path. Asking 70% of the original price for a spare part is cheating, pure and simple! I wonder what difference I’d have had in selecting some fly-by-night Chinese brand over Nikon, which also would have served me well for at least two years? Here, my friend too is disturbed, afraid that his own instrument may fail at any time.

At last, here I am, wondering again which camera to buy for a major tour coming up at the end of the year. I still haven’t finalised, but one thing is certain – its name won’t start with a capital N!

Bentek Energy’s Failed Dig at Wind Energy

Last week, an article appeared in Forbes.com website, the publisher of the prestigious business magazine. A column by Robert Bryce announced that ‘A new study takes the wind out of wind energy’. The piece was based on a report by Bentek Energy, a Colorado-based energy analytics firm. The authors of the study, Porter Bennett (who is also its Founder, current President and CEO) and Brannin McBee analysed actual emission data from four regions in the U.S. and came to the conclusion that the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) have vastly overestimated wind’s ability to cut sulphur dioxide (SO₂), nitrous oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO₂). The study also claimed that in some regions, like California, using wind energy doesn’t reduce SO₂ emissions at all. The most important conclusion of the study is that wind energy is not a cost-effective solution for reducing CO₂ if carbon is valued at less than $33 per ton, which is still greater than Australia’s brave new initiative of $25.3 (A$ 23) carbon tax per ton. AWEA claims that every 1000 units (kWh) of energy generated from wind cuts CO₂ emissions by 0.8 tons, SO₂ by 2.57 kg, and NOx by 1.04 kg. The study rubbishes these claims and declares that wind energy cuts emissions at far lesser levels than these claims. In fact, they could find reduced emissions only where coal-based power plants predominated.

But wait, how could you accuse wind energy for reduced emission cuts, when in fact a wind turbine doesn’t emit any noxious gas? How can the report claim that wind energy cuts emission by 0.5 tons of CO₂ and not 0.8 tons as claimed by AWEA? There comes out the comic aspect, or the false seriousness of the study. What this report projects as an underperformance by wind energy is in fact a veiled praise for the reduced emission from fossil fuel based power plants. There also, the report cleverly differentiates between natural gas-based and coal-based plants. For example, in Texas, where the major fuel is natural gas, the emission is reported to be 0.54 kg per 1000 units of electricity as against 2.57 kg claimed by AWEA. This trend runs contrary to northern U.S. states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and the Dakotas where coal is the major fuel and where the emissions are claimed to be far more than AWEA estimates (1.0 ton per MWh, instead of 0.8 tons). What is the lesson we can learn from this circus by the Bentek Energy study team? They clearly try to discredit the wind turbine industry which is heavily reliant on subsidies, but in the garb of doing so, takes a dig at the coal industry. Why an independent analytics firm employ such double standards?

For the answer to this question, we need to look into the history of Bentek Energy. Porter Bennett founded the organisation in 1985 as a consulting firm catering to the energy industry specialising in market and customer analysis. Bennett is currently the chairman of the Natural Gas Committee and director of the Independent Producers Association of Mountain States Natural Gas Committee, an Observer with the Potential Gas Committee and member of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association. Are they glowing credentials of an impartial researcher? He is too closely associated with the gas industry and that’s why he plays down wind, and in the process, coal too. Does this firm think that the readers of their reports are as thick-headed as their clients?

The surprising aside is that Forbes, a reputed journal, fell in for this trick and gave a prominent place to this article on their website, when in fact what it deserved was the waste bin. One can’t help thinking that the U.S. industry, notorious for their environment-harsh operations are also in the forefront of discrediting green energy sources, thereby prompting users to rely more on hydrocarbons, helping to keep crude oil price in the astronomical scales.

By the way, this is my first green blog! Ever since I read Friedman's nice book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, I am an initiate to the green movement.

When the only tool you own is a hammer…

ISRO successfully launched its geo-stationary satellite, GSAT-12 on July 15^th. Strange it may seem, the launch vehicle was the PSLV-C17, ISRO’s only proven workhorse. But, PSLV stands for Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, right? Which means this rocket is designed to put satellites earmarked for remote sensing, cartography and military applications into a polar orbit? Then why ISRO is using this vehicle to send a geo-satellite which need to be at an orbit 36,000 km high? There we are, marvelling at the wisdom of the adage, “When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail.”

As mentioned in my previous blog post, ISRO has failed to come up with GSLV, the rocket capable of sending communication satellites to geo-synchronous orbits. They have attempted, true, but the result is a miserable failure. Other countries had developed their own capability in far less time and with far less budget. In the U.S., even a private company owns this technology! What more ISRO can hope for, with the massive infrastructure of budget, man power and an audience which applauds at even the slightest ups, but fails to notice the biggest downs? The GSLV, when it takes shape at last, would be poor cousins to the versions owned by developed countries and China, as it can handle only 2.5 tons, whereas the capacity is 4.5 to 5 tons elsewhere. ISRO can’t even come up with even this humble one.

And just how did they manage to launch a geo-satellite with PSLV? It launched it into an elliptical transfer orbit, with 284 km perigee and 21,000 km apogee. The inbuilt liquid apogee motor then took control which raised both the apogee and perigee to put it at 36,000 km! I don’t know much about rocket science, but surely, such a powerful motor must have used up more space and power which could’ve been used for communication transponders, if only ISRO could perfect the design of GSLV? The saddest part is that the unsuspecting public wholeheartedly celebrated ISRO’s feat, which in fact was a fiasco.

GSAT-8 and ISRO’s impossible dream

Ariane-5 blasting off from French Guiana with GSAT-8

India’s latest communication satellite, GSAT-8 was launched successfully from French Guiana aboard European Space Agency’s Ariane-5 rocket yesterday. The 3-ton satellite is the largest and heaviest ever built by ISRO and boasts of state-of-the-art communication devices designed to give a big boost to the country on the verge of being a major player in the global arena. While the agency is basking under the praise heaped on it by the media, let’s have a look to see whether they really deserve it.

India launched its first satellite, Aryabhata in 1975. We had no technical capability of launching even this small one, so it was carried by a Soviet rocket. ISRO built the satellite launch vehicle (SLV) and successfully blasted off Rohini-1A, a 30-kg satellite in 1979. India began development of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) which carries remote-sensing satellites then and slowly graduated to the development of GSLV (Geo-stationary Satellite Launch Vehicle) which would put communication satellites like the GSAT-8. GSLV project was launched in 1990 and had its maiden flight in 2001. With a mass of 400 tons, the GSLV is capable to put a payload of 2.5 tons into orbit. There were 7 missions so far, but 5 of them ended in failure. Every time one of the vehicles plunge into the Bay of Bengal, we are assured by politicians and ISRO scientists that a minor malfunctioning in a minor part of the system caused the accident which would be corrected soon. True to their word, the error will be corrected in the next mission, only for another component to fail. Even after 21 years of development, ISRO is unable to provide the nation with the capability. A whopping 32 years have passed since we first put a satellite into orbit, but still incompetent to master the technology.

To fully grasp ISRO’s incompetence, we should see how fast the others have developed the required wherewithal to be the key players in the field. NASA launched its first satellite, Explorer-I in 1958 and the first geo-synchronous satellite, Syncom-2 in 1963 with a Delta rocket, just 5 years later! The Europeans began with geo-synchronous capability in 1979 with its Ariane-1 rocket. The Russians could launch a geo-satellite 8 years after their entry into the field, with a Soyuz rocket achieving the target in 1965. All of them could attain in a decade what a nation of 1-billion people couldn’t in 32 years! Funding is definitely one of the factors in our lagging behind, but it seems to be a lame excuse. If we can build a rocket and blast it off from the pad, the role of funding is clearly over at that moment, what is remaining is the quality of the material and workmanship. With the present track record, ISRO is blocking the nation’s progress.

We shall now look at the power and capability of GSLV if at all we succeed in perfecting it. This much-touted rocket can handle a payload of only a maximum of 2.5 tons! With this paltry vehicle we cannot put even our own high-end satellites like GSAT-8 (launched yesterday, 3 tons), INSAT-4B (launched in 2007 from French Guiana, 3 tons) and GSAT-10 (planned in 2012, 3.4 tons). We still have to depend on foreign agencies for launching our heavier and more superb satellites. Even our plans are affected by the mediocrity of GSLV. A list of satellites launched or planned to be launched on GSLV shows this. GSAT-5P (2.3 tons, failed in Dec 2010), GSAT-4 (2.2 tons, failed in Apr 2010), INSAT-3D (2.1 tons), GSAT-6 (2.2 tons), GSAT-7 (2.3 tons, planned this year), GSAT-9 (2.3 tons, planned in 2013-14) are indicative of the trend of making lighter satellites so that GSLV can carry them. Surely, this is a waste of money! The incremental cost of a kg of payload is smaller as the total weight goes up. The uselessness of GSLV is painfully realised if we compare it to other workhorses around the world. NASA’s Delta-IV can carry up to 13 tons of payload, while Ariane-5 can do 9 tons and even Falcon-9, the flagship of SpaceX, a private company which entered the field in 2002 can carry 4.5 tons. Why are we aiming for the sub-standard?

The ISRO’s performance was dismal in the first decade of the new century. In this period, they could only augment the launch capability from 1.5 tons to 2.3 tons, an increase of only 800 kg. They seem to have reached the limit of usefulness with a full-fledged capability of polar vehicles and nothing more. Isn’t it high time that the nation demand more from their scientists? Where will be Chandrayaan-2 and manned lunar missions, if we can’t even put a man above our own earth?