What Means Christmas - Vlog Episode 3

I don't want you to miss out the cute stories so I am posting the link below:

Satisfaction Cost

“How much?”

“Combien?” (French)

“Cuánto” (Spanish)

“Quanto” (Italian)

“いくらですか” (ikura desu ka?) (Japanese)

No matter which language you use this is one expression that is universally important!

How to ask the price of something is an essential phrase whether you are out visiting the market or “agora” in Greek or shopping in the neighbourhood market for melons.

The significance of this question is twofold - to find out if you can afford it and to judge whether it’s worth that price. The order of these considerations changes based on various factors.

And then there’s the whole economics of price vs. supply vs. demand. There are already many books written on this topic so I won’t go into that. However, I do want to discuss the price vs. perception of quality phenomenon.

In Hindi we have a saying, “Mehnga roye ek baar, sasta roye baar baar” meaning the one who buys expensive cries once (for having to pay a high price) but the one who buys cheap cries again and again (when the thing breaks down or lets him down).

Generally, that’s the idea, something that’s more expensive is better in quality. This was based on certain factors that were true in the industrial age. The price of the item depended on the materials used, the workmanship, the machines and other manufacturer-oriented factors.

And then entered advertising into the field. If you could make the consumer want the item, the actual quality of the item could be made secondary. Readers of my blog, and my friends (and strangers) know that I don’t like iPhones and I have commented more than once that they would be alright if they were priced at about £100-£200. It’s advertising and clever marketing that allows Apple to sell them at the exorbitant price that they don’t deserve.

So, what is the real driver for the cost here? It’s Satisfaction. Companies are able to set the prices of their products based on how much a given product will satisfy the customer. You would be more satisfied carrying the likes of Samsung, LG or Sony mobile in your pocket than some unknown brand that originated in a nameless factory in a far east Asian country. The factory maybe situated down the road from the Samsung factory but the product would not give you the same pride, same assurance, same Satisfaction if you will...

Given that it’s not simple enough in these times to compare two products and judge their intrinsic quality from holding them in your hands like you could compare two earthen pitchers, it becomes necessary to take things at face value or Brand Value.

This phenomenon causes the disconnect between cost and price. Companies no longer set the prices  of items based on their cost price and overhead but based on Satisfaction Cost, what the consumer can be made to pay for that item.

[Credit to my brother Anil Goswami, for the term: Satisfaction Cost]

Why Salsa people are good people.

One of my reasons for loving salsa is that it gets me to socialise and meet a lot of nice people. I am not one for socialising or going out to meet strangers. But going out to learn salsa has the great side effect of meeting a lot of lovely people. In this post I want to quickly list out why I think Salsa people are nice people as opposed to say going out to normal nightclubs.

- Salsa people are social
Why else would they be out dancing and chatting with other people? Even the introvert people (like me) enjoy meeting other people and having nice conversations. Even in the short time that I have been learning salsa I have a lot of salsa friends, not because I am such a great guy but because they are such friendly people. They reach out to a stranger, reassure a nervous beginner and are friendly as a rule.

- They are open to new experiences
They come to the salsa class because they are open to doing something they haven't done before.

- They are about self-improvement.
Learning a new skill like dancing Salsa I would count as self-improvement. It takes a lot of practice and perseverance to learn salsa so essentially salsa people are the kind of people who are willing to dedicate their time and effort (and money) to learn a new skill. I am not counting those who give up after a few classes but I am counting those who realize they have got the bug and come back to Salsa to try harder (I am one of them.)

- They are capable of laughing at themselves.
Even in the beginning of the learning process you find out that learning to dance Salsa means making a lot of mistakes while you learn. And all the successful Salsa dancers learn to laugh at their mistakes and keep trying. (Those who don't learn this cannot be successful in salsa. It's just that kind of dance.)
[Caveat: I have heard about these "LA" style dancers who take things very seriously and are irritated by mistakes. I haven't met any of these myself so I will stick to my point.]

- They are not heavy drinkers.
At least not when they dance. Although it's not a teetotallerian environment, alcohol doesn't flow as freely around a Salsa dance floor as in a normal club. Some people abstain as they find it counter-productive for their learning in the class while others (like me) get high on the dance itself. Whatever the reason, I haven't seen any drunken behaviour or bar-fights in a salsa event yet.

- They come from varying ages and backgrounds
And variety being the spice of life it makes it things very interesting. Doing salsa I have met people from 20 and younger all the way up to 60 and above. And I have loved chatting with all of them.

- They are usually modest
During the early period of learning salsa we come to realize that it's not a quick and easy skill to acquire. On the way to learning this skill we go through a period when we are not any good and we watch more experienced dancers burning up the dance floor. I think that makes us humble.
That's not to say that there is no vanity on the salsa dance floor but that's not the norm. Most salseros are modest, friendly people who salsa because they love to dance not because they want to show off.

- They are good dressers.
This is a given considering that half of the salsa people are ladies, but even salseros make an effort to dress well for the occasion. The result is that in any salsa social you spend an evening with a bunch of well-dressed, friendly, fun people.
What could be better?


So there you have it in a nutshell why I think Salsa people are some of the best people you could meet socially.

I would love to hear what you think...

Ipad2 - Anything worth buying is worth queuing for?

Somebody I work with just shared that they queued up for a couple of hours to buy the new ipad2. I mean how stupid can you get? This same person wouldn't be able to use all the features even of an ipad and wouldn't know what they are missing even after paying a premium for the brand name.

It sometimes pisses me off and sometimes amuses me how people buy Apple's iCrap simply because it's considered the cool thing to possess. They don't have the need for it and certainly not the knowledge to make an informed decision but just the craving to be seen with the "cool" gadgets. LOL.

And Apple controls them like sheep. Advertising heavily for each product, carefully planning a staggered release of features, and reducing the number of devices released each cycle, Apple is able to not only make they buy this crap but also feel privileged to waste money on it.

And now some ipad jokes to amuse you.


Steve, I’ma let you finish, but Moses had the greatest tablet announcement of all time.


Apple is makin a new version iPad with bells on it,they say its for the christmas period…

The other side of amazing

I was talking about how people are amazing in an earlier post. Well, there's the flip side to this.

Recently there was a problem with some Android apps where some developers (I shouldn't call them developers, normal developers are good people, let's call these people the nasties), they had developed apps that were malicious like the computer viruses. If you installed those apps they could gain control of your phone and even access your personal information. So, when Google found out, they used a remote kill switch to delete these malicious apps from all users' phones. Now, I think that was a good thing and no scare was caused.
But, listen to what Peter Pachal from PCMag.com had to say about it, and I am quoting from the Metro newspaper. "But going into my phone and erasing software - no matter how bad it may be - strikes me as a vaguely Orwellian thing to do."

That's like saying, "Thank you very much, Mr. Fireman, for rescuing my wife from the burning building, but I'd rather a strange man didn't touch my wife."

[If you are wondering what Orwellian means - Click here.]

People are just amazing!

Google has developed this mobile platform that everybody is going crazy about. Yes, I am talking about Android. And Google being Google (and not Apple) they released the source code also and kept releasing with every new version.

The Android platform is pretty awesome in itself. But then some people, probably young, school-going teenagers, got their hands on this OS code and tweaked the hell out of it. They tweaked stuff, they developed stuff, they fine-tuned and optimized, or whatever you want to call it, but they released something called a custom ROM. A custom ROM is an unofficial version of the Android OS and has even MORE features than the original.

This one guy called Cyanogen (his internet handle not his name), probably a 17-year old genius who goes to school in the day and juggles bits and bytes around at night, publishes this enhanced OS, developed by himself and the other collaborating developers from original Google source. The website is called www.cyanogen.com (what did you expect it to be called?).

I am amazed by how these guys, invidual developers, manage to improve upon the output of a huge corporation like Google! And from all I know, Goole is not the kind of company that stifles creativity in the first place.

Then look at YouTube. People post all kinds of stuff there. Other than the jokes and silly videos, there is a  plethora of useful information on YouTube in the form of tutorials and instructional videos. And most of it done by individuals!

Then look at all these bloggers, they create so much content every day that at a rough guess it's much more than the newspapers of the world. These days when I search for information, the type where I need a question answered, I get most helpful links from YouTube, blogs and forums like Yahoo Answers.

On polyphasic sleep my first source of information was purely blogs.

When making buying decisions, esp. about things like books and mobile devices, my most reliable source of information are personal reviews.

It just goes to show that in this information age, individual is as important, if not more, as the big corporations. And I have seen it happen in front of me during my own lifetime! It still amazes me!