Friday, May 25, 2007

Why AirDeccan makes sense

Travelling in the low-cost airline is not quite an experience you could write about. But then, the Air Deccan flight does make sense since its primary objective is to take you from point A to B, which it does good (if you ignore the many delays and the odd rumours surrounding it - from engines switching off during flight and the cold air blown into the plane before take-off since there is no air conditioner. sic).

A few stuff which you might notice:

No helping ground staff: You don't get helpers while boarding any bus. So why here? Its quite obvious on where to go next. If in doubt, 'ask' seems to be the logic.

No seat numbers: The immediate problem with this is the rush in getting into the carrier bus which takes you to the plane and the final rush before getting into the flight. Though this process by Deccan might sound a bit primitive, it is not so if the passengers themselves were a bit more polished.

No free refreshments/snacks : Yes, you could have charged more to serve more. But, we should be able to adjust; since if you are really hungry, you could always buy your food! The purpose/effectiveness of serving food in other airlines appear to keep the passengers engaged; most of them feel irate after sitting down for a while doing nothing. No wonder this pilot announced arrival at the destination 20 min's prior to actually getting there.

But then, they could definitely have served free drinking water. A 500ml bottle cost you Rs10/ in-flight. To think about it, the poorest of Indian would treat you to a tumbler of water anytime! (perhaps its a bottle of water the Deccan's common-man had in his backpack )

No hype/glamour experience - No tight short skirted air hostess with heavy make-ups, no in-flight video/audio (unless you count the pilots announcements), no heavy western accented and tight lipped staff.

Overall, the airlines is definitely trying hard to make air-flights accessible to the common-man and perform the job of carrying the passenger to their destination.

Perhaps, it /was/ an experience to write about.

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Remember those days?

The many visits from far and near, neighbours and relatives, vendors and friends is a routine familiar with most of us at our homes back in Kerala. Wonder how the next generation would get to know about the many wonderful experiences we had...from the sprawling acres to explore, the 'discoveries',the variety of mangoes, the ponds, the paddy fields, the gossips, life, the church goers, fishing, the bath by the well, the odd games we played, the explorers. Oh God, what a life we used to live.

What an experience we had - a novel. Perhaps we would return another day.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Play God?

Would we be able to play God ? That is, arrange the basic infrastructure for 'life' to evolve by itself.

Biological
What if we setup an environment for the heterotrophs (believed to be first life form) to flourish ? Wonder how these would adapt and evolve to humans[?] Thinking about this, remember that thoughts for these life form itself would evolve over the decades, starting from near zero. Perhaps if we find a promising planet which could sustain life, we should transport the algae/heterotrophs and watch if Darwin's theory proves itself?

Mechanical
Can we setup machines and robots which can adapt, create new machines/robots and completely evolve in thoughts and its application ? We would want a basic machine which knows how to evolve, think, create new machines.

About us
Thinking further, could earth and the life surrounding it could be an experiment? In this case, the scientist who got this right could be named God.