A Few Election Slogans for New Delhi

दिल्ली में है मचा धमाल, केजरीवाल केजरीवाल।

पड़ गई उल्टी किरन की चाल, केजरीवाल केजरीवाल।

मंत्रीमंडल रहा डेरा डाल, केजरीवाल केजरीवाल।

रोज पूछते पाँच सवाल, केजरीवाल केजरीवाल।

किसको दोगे पॉंच साल,  केजरीवाल केजरीवाल।

Lollipop: Familiarity Induces Confidence to Waive Security

I recall an evening walk with my grandson, Arnav.  We turned into an alley that was new for him.  He immediately tightened his grip on my hand and said, "I don't like going too far away from home."  I picked him up and held him close to my chest.  He looked intently at my face and relaxed.  Sometimes I drive him to unknown places in the old car retained by my son.  He never becomes apprehensive as long as he is in the car.  He has known this car since his birth.  The familiarity breeds confidence in him.

Security in Lollipop, Android's latest version, seems to be modeled after Arnav. It implements security through password / patterns and at the same time tells the system to have confidence when it finds itself in a familiar place or when it sees a familiar face or when it is close to a familiar device.  In these cases it unlocks itself.  If none of the reassuring factors are present, it asks for the password or the pattern.

This confidence based security is implemented through Smart Lock.  It is called smart because it unlocks the system when having confidence in the owner, place or connected devices.  If the confidence is lacking the system can only be unlocked through password / pattern.  Smart Lock is called a Trust Agent that tells the system about what to trust.  The design suggests that other trust agents may also be added later on.

I have experimented with all the three Smart Locks (connected device, place and face.). Face based unlocking doesn't work every time.  This is only as expected.  Place based unlocking is working well.  Documentation says the device remains unlocked within 80 meters of the defined place.

Smart unlocking in the presence of a recognized Bluetooth device may prove a weakness if both the devices get stolen together!

Needless to add that Smart Lock can be activated only if a password or pattern is active.  Unless there is a lock there is nothing to smartly lock or unlock.  It is also a fallback if smart unlock doesn't work as happens many times in case of trusted faces.

The settings for Smart Lock are found here: Settings->Security->Smart Lock.

Interruptions, Vibrate and Silent modes in Lollipop

While browsing certain forums on the Internet, I have come across posts that seem to complain that true silent or vibrate only modes are no more available in the latest version of Android, namely, Lollipop.  Actually it is not so.  Not only are these options there, there are many other possibilities too.

In earlier versions one could choose between Mute, Vibrate and Sound (Normal) modes after a long press of the Power button. This was in addition to choosing between Power off, Airplane and other actions.  In Lollipop (stock version) the only option that you get after long pressing the Power button is Power off.

But now you get three options when you press the Volume Up or Down button while on one of the Home screens.  These options are labelled None, Priority and All.  These are the three Interrupt Levels.  None means that you don't want any interruptions in your work. If you choose None, the phone goes silent.  Silent here means no sound and no vibration either.  Though, any alarms set by you will sound.  If you want to mute the alarms too, you have to additionally set the volume to zero.  This is the equivalent of Silent mode that some users are not able to figure out.  Option All is the default and, of course, means the Normal mode.  The normal mode means that all sounds for incoming calls, messages, events and alarms will sound as configured.  If you have the option All chosen and just turn the volume down all the way to zero, the phone gets into Vibrate mode.  Also you may choose the option Priority and turn the volume to zero.  In this case the phone will vibrate only when there is a call (or message) from an important (starred) contact.

The Silent mode now has an additional feature.  If you press Volume Up or Down and choose the option None, you get an additional choice between Indefinite and defined number of hours.  So if you choose 1 hour, the default, the phone automatically reverts back to Normal mode after the defined period.

This feature of a preset time is also available for Priority interruptions.

Settings also allow you to automate Priority mode during predefined hours on chosen days of the week.

This finally brings us to the question, what is Priority?  To understand this we have to go to Settings->Sound & Notification->Interruptions.  The screen looks as follows:

Here, the very first item "When calls and notifications arrive" presents you three choices.  These are the same that you get when you press Volume Up or Down button.  Though the wordings are different, these correspond to All (Always Interrupt,) Priority (Allow only priority interruptions,) and None (Don't interrupt.)

The next item lets you choose what are priority interruptions for you.  You can specify whether you consider calendar messages (Events and Reminders) priority or not.  You can also define whether Messages are priority or not.  And, of course, you can specify whether or not phone calls are a priority for you.

For phone calls and messages you can further specify whether your choice applies to all calls and messages or are calls and messages from important contacts only to be considered a priority and allowed while all others may be muted depending on setting.  The contacts to be considered important have to be starred.  Any contact can be starred by touching the star at the top when you display that contact.  The star is a toggle and touching a starred contact unstarrs it.  It may be noted that calls and messages are not "prioritized" together but separately by turning their respective toggles on or off.  So you may consider calls priority while choosing not to do so for messages, or vice versa.

Alarms are always a priority and there is no way to set priority off for them.  But in case you want absolutely no interruptions including alarms, you can do so easily.  You have to turn the volume to zero using Volume Down key and choose None from the three options.  With this setting even alarms will not ring.

It may be noted that priorities and interruptions apply only to sounds.  The display always comes on when any interruption arrives.

It is always a good idea to have your important contacts starred.

You would have noticed from the screen above that you can also configure your phone for automating only priority interruptions during defined hours on selected days.  One would normally do that for normal sleeping hours.  If you want absolute silence during your sleep you can turn all the three Priority interruptions off.

This design is quite exciting and presents many possibilities through proper combinations of settings and quick options.

I will be happy to answer any queries in this matter.

Showing Off His Stripes

The simplicity of Prime Minister Modi's tastes as revealed by deliberately cutting the lower half of sleeves off his kurtas, is much talked about.  Again, one of the many aspects of Narendra Modi's life that have left deep impression on peoples' mind is his claim of having walked away from the hubbub of normal life and having spent two years in isolation in Himalayas.  Saints are said to do so with the intention of ridding themselves of their egos and worldly attachments.  People with such inclinations wear clothes merely to cover their bodies and not to adorn them.  Some of them don't wear clothes at all.  Some wear clothes with God's names printed all over it.

Thus It would seem that a person like Modi would be very unlikely to behave like Hosni Mubarak who used to have his name form the stripes on his suits.  But news channels are showing closeups to support the claim that he did.

Now, I don't know who made the suiting for our dear Namo.  I would like to hazard a guess that it might have been made by Vimal, Reliance's fabric division.  It is also possible that the cloth was made for devotees to wear like a Ramnami cloth but somehow made its way to NaMo's wardrobe.

Whatever be the case it has gained huge popularity.  Reliance will do well to encash this publicity.  They may do so by weaving such legends in their pinstripes as "I Love Namo!", "A Silly Citizen", "Citizens for NaMo" etcetera etcetera.  You may suggest more such legends directly to Reliance.  The best suggestion might win a pinstriped 'legendary' suit.

बेदी श्लोकावली

या बेदी भाजपस्य CM प्रत्याशी रूपेण चिह्निता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

या बेदी कार्यकर्ता हृदयेषु क्रोध रूपेण संस्थिता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

या बेदी कृष्णानगरे मतदातागणस्य हर्षवर्धिता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

या बेदी अर्णव संगे वाक् युद्धेण पलायिता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

या बेदी मफलर पुरुषस्य शास्त्रार्थ निमंत्रण उपेक्षिता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

या बेदी अन्ना देवेन समस्त शिक्षा संस्कार मर्दिता।
नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै, नमस्तस्यै NaMo नमः॥

Garnering the Woman Power

Yes, it is about the recent influx of women into BJP.  Women from the field of social service as also other political parties are rushing to join the Bharatiya Janata Party.  The list includes such luminaries as Kiran Bedi, Shazia Ilmi, Krishna Tirath and ..., wait, no, Binny I am told is a man.  And Kiran Walia, it is reported, is sticking with Congress till the time of writing this post.

This induction of women power is indeed very foresighted on the part of BJP.  It also shows that it has not forgotten the history when one of its bachelor leaders was tormented by three spinsters.  Though the current leader is not really a bachelor, the terrific trinity is still around.  Also it must be said to BJP's credit that it has also been a great admirer of women power right from the days of that great woman, Indira Gandhi.  I am told that NaMo himself is a great admirer of the departed lady.

BJP has admired woman power and also suffered at its hands and so it cannot be faulted for garnering of the same power into its own folds.

However the womenfolk paying obeisance to Namo and getting an AmiT mark, will do well to keep in mind the fate of a very vocal and powerful lady in BJP who now stands subdued.  They will also do well to meditate on the fate of the first woman who is alleged to have pledged a lifelong allegiance to NaMo.

Buttons For Expressions And Panels for Buttons

On our high definition screens displaying 16M colors, we are forced by Facebook (FB) to live in the two-tone world of like or no like (Dislike is still not available except for pictures.)  'No likes' has a lot of ambiguity.  It could be because people have missed out on your post, or they were ambivalent towards what you said, or they wanted to say something different from Like.  That they disliked it is only one of the possible reasons for lack of likes.

While FB still has no plans to introduce a Dislike button for textual posts, it has introduced a large number of stickers.  After all in the real world we have umpteen kinds of reactions to what we see or hear.  Stickers wonderfully map a large nunber of these reactions into icon sized cartoons.

(Those who are not yet using stickers can get and use stickers by clicking on the smiley in the comment box that is appended to each post on the news feed page.)

Despite the wide range of stickers - new age emoticons - there is a problem with them.  Button clicks are captured and aggregated by the software and the final processed figure is presented for your easy comprehension.  The tabulation and aggregation has to be done by the user himself when the response is through a sticker.  And to top it you have to find a wide range of column headings for capturing and summarizing sticker responses.  These could be - Dislike, Damn you!, Terrific!, LOL, ROTFLMAO, Superb et al.

So, my question to you dear reader is this - If FB were to agree to put a whole dashboard of buttons for choosing a response to a post, how should these buttons be labelled?  I have already given my suggestions in the preceding paragraph.

I may add that there are many emotional posts where both Like and Dislike are absolutely inappropriate.  Appropriate responses might be Empathize, GWS (Get Well Soon) etc.  Thus apart from multiplicity of buttons probably we also need multiple dashboards for grouping the buttons.  The dashboards could be titled - Regular Responses, Emotional Responses, Satirical Responses etcetera.   How many more can you think of?