Trivial Matters ( Part - II )

During my schooling most of the time we did not have watches. It was difficult to tell when the periods would end. I was tall enough to be entitled to back bench I was luckier to get a window seat, overlooking Nandu’s compound (He was a petty part time farmer who grew vegetable just outside our school boundary. Window had grill and we used to have sunlight coming in till the lunch time. Hence I used the Jantar Mantar style to track time. Probably it was the best thing to find when the boring classes would finally come to end. It used to be pretty handy if there were crux situation and knew that I will be in receiving end of teacher’s wrath. So the periods were neatly marked with the pencil, ready for the minor alignment for summers and winters can be incorporated. A real trivial thing to substitute the watch but did mean a lot to me those days.

After 10th grade I got the opportunity to study in a residential school near Chennai. This required a long travel in a normal class. It used to painful especially when you were near the destination. I used to be glued to the window all the time. Ticket collectors used to be annoyed with us as all the time we used to ask him how far we are from the destination and how much time it will take to reach there. So there was a big necessity to find the way out without speaking a word to anyone. In this process I found a way that by mere watching and with help of a pen and a watch, I could tell how far is the destination, expected time of arrival and the most important the speed of the train. No rocket science, just the power of observation.

If you have electrified tracks you will see that there is a numbering mechanism where in on the top is a larger no for example say 252, and then on the bottom there a number system which goes like this 1/16 . This 1/16 keeps on changing per pole and it becomes with the second pole 2/16 and once you cross 16/16 the top line number will change to 251. Hence the conclusion is 16 poles are equal to one kilometre. The top line number reduces because it indicates the distance to a major station or junction where the train will get terminated.

Hence all you have to do to calculate the speed of the train is to time the kilometre travelled. You keep jotting it at regular interval and then the simple mathematics to roughly predict when you will arrive to the respective station. Trivial isn’t it?

In my final year of graduation I finally gave in to my ambition of being an entrepreneur. I always wanted the attire to be also of one and hence came my challenge with the neck tie. To this date I am a regular with the neck tie and have a good collection of the same. But not many know the science involved in wearing a simple thing like tie, A truly a trivial matter.

When I started wearing a tie it used to never perfect. All the time one or the other end used be larger than the other. If the inner thing was large it could be tucked inside the shirt but it also resulted in the other end too short and would look awkward to wear. Hence a formula was derived to sort the matter out. All you need is stand in front of a mirror and adjust the tie with the desired length from your neck to the belt. Once done from that point you need to measure from the thumb to the end of index finger fully stretched. This is the point you have to start tying the knot and you will arrive with perfection to the desired length. Thou minor adjustment might be required from tie to tie and that you can gain that from experience or you can ask the expert and inventor of this science. The calculation is simple the length from ones starting point of the thumb to the index finger is what it takes for the knot to come in and hence it is always perfect. There might be other way around but to this date I carry on with my trivial innovation.

Walking is passion for me, even after I met with a nasty accident where I almost lost my right let knee down. That was the time when I did not even hear about pedometer and I wanted to calculate the distance I walked. Calorie burned was not the there in my mind but calculating distance was surely some interest to me.

Luckily Internet was there to offer me a quick solution. I downloaded a converter and tried to see what a step would count for. Roughly a step we take while walking is about three feet long and 3 feet = 1 yard. Now all I had to do is to find how many yards are equal to one kilometre, and it is 1093.613. That means if I take about 1100 steps it is a kilometre of walk and those interested in calorie count can proceed forward or if you want to save hassles just buy an inexpensive pedometer. Till this date whenever I take a new route for my daily walking I count it thoroughly to be sure of the distance I covered on that route.

This is as trivial as it can get, but you cannot carry the pedometer every time with you. I had one of this equipment but lost it as it is too small and it can easily snap away from the belt. This calculation came handy to me once when few friends were debating over the length of walk in our colony football field. To end the debate all I required is to count the steps and arrive at almost perfect numbers.

Finally a project which I think is still viable. During my graduation days with help of my friend Mohit, I did meet a HAM Radio enthusiast. He was a retired army man in probably in end of the eight decade of his existence. He painfully explained us what it is all about, with his over sized radio tuning in his Morse code device in a tiny room he had earmarked for his hobby in his apartment.

Those days Internet has not found its way to my ears, must be in quite nascent stage with the US army. He explained us that he could talk to anyone in world fee of cost. Once the interesting part was over he went into a caution mode where he started mentioning details that the misuse of this device was impossible. He did mention that government gives licenses and kept a keen watch on what was transferred. Matter almost ended until I met another friend of mine, to whom I did explain about my findings probably to sound more intelligent. This guy was even more keen to assert his intelligence and told me that the data transfer is possible thru this, and one of his friend in US is also into it and is already been able to do 300bps (Baud per second) data transfer using Ham radio.

Hence my project started, as others all in my mind. I thought 300bps is quite less we already had 1200bps modems in market by that time, but was enough to do text based transfers. Hence I started dreaming about my own version of today’s Blackberry. The advantage was I could send message to any part of the world. Integrate the solution with the computer etc. The plus was that like internet it was almost free and had even wider reach to every nook and corner of the world. To this date this advantage still remains with this technology, you really need not worry about the connection any where even in the deepest of jungle with any inhabitants.

Later with the advent of Internet I thought of further integrating it with internet with a gateway solution anywhere in the world. There were problems and I had solutions too for them. Like since this service was free and worked in broadcast mode what could be done if we had huge traffic once launched in commercial real life world. The solution was that Ham could be used as technology demonstrator and for commercial thing a new frequency or a satellite transponder could be bought. Probably if miniaturisation of this device is possible it can be part of any handheld device. I still somehow get excited thinking if this technology is feasible there can be many advantages and add-ons example global Bluetooth kind of technology. Well I need to end here as this part too is getting quite big.

There were many other but I did try to choose best amongst them. Well what else I just wait for your feedbacks and most importantly I do want you to share some of your own experiences, please do.