Fun, History, Records and Politics in our day at London Olympics 2012

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Gangadhar

Ever since I saw Olympics on TV when I was growing up, I wanted to see an Olympics in person. When tickets for the London Olympics went up for sale last year, I submitted my bid on the very first day! I was even more thrilled when they allocated tickets to us in the first round of random selection. After waiting for more than one year, I was at the Olympics in London last week. Here is how it went.

The Train Stations were decked up

We noticed the festive atmosphere as soon as we got out of the Eurostar. There were smiling volunteers everywhere who were ready to help us with any of our questions about the event. Since we wanted to know where the nearest ticket office was, one volunteer went to the extent of using her own cell phone and laptop to hunt this information down. This was the level of enthusiasm from the volunteers everywhere.

On the day of the event, we were told to reach the gates of the event at least 90 minutes prior to the start of the event since there would be airport style screening. We were also told to expect huge delays since the public transport system would be over whelmed. But we found the whole process very smooth and without delays. There were signs everywhere and so one could not get lost.

Even though it was airport style screening, the checkin process did not take more than 10 minutes. They were very efficient about it. The longest lines were for toilets and gift shops once we were inside the venue!

They had also informed us not to bring filled water bottles and to get empty ones. We got filled ones with the expectation to use it before we got into the check in process. We planned to empty them if they asked us to. But they took away our filled water bottles and gave us brand new ones! This was a very pleasant surprise. This was very thoughtful of them (even though not very environmentally friendly). This process was not repeated at our second event. There, they allowed us to take our filled water bottles with us as long as we took a sip in front of them!

Rain Soaked Volleyball

First event – Beach Volleyball. Who does not want to watch beach volleyball?! We saw Italy and Russian (ladies prelimnary match) which Italy won. The second one was a men’s match between Spain and Czech Republic. Spain won this game very easily.

The announcer was getting the crowd pumped by saying “Who is for Russian Federation? Who is for Italy? Now who is for Great Britain?!”. Obviously the last one got the maximum noise.

Our next event was ladies’ weightlifting. If you want your child to get over their feelings of “my dad is the strongest in the world”, this is the event to get it done!

Directions were everywhere

Directions Inside the Train

We had to make our way across town to the Excel center. The Olympics spectator guide talked about giving extra time to reach our venues and so we left the previous venue before all the events were complete. We noticed that the traffic was very well managed and we reached our destination more than 90 minutes to spare.

When we took our seats, we noticed that we had got some really good seats. We were seated 4-5 rows in and on the left side of the stage which gave us a very good view. This allowed us to be fully immersed in the emotions of the game.

The scheduled event was Women’s 53 kg weightlifting. There were 10 contestants and we were able to get into supporting everyone since we could see the effort they were putting in. Here there were no cheering squads or cheering commentators but the game was a lot more engaging. Was it because we were so close to the action? I think so.

Yay! A New World Record

Shu-Ching Hsu from Taiwan demolished the competition by lifting her weights with ease. She was announced as a Shu-Ching from “Chinese Taipei”. I know that Taipei is the capital of Taiwan and have never heard of this country (more on this later). She made it look extremely easy. This was until Zulfiya Chiunshanlo of Kazakhstan came along and broke the world record. She was quite an unlikely candidate for breaking the world record since she looked so small in size.

Notice the Taiwan flag – it has Olympic rings on it

Then came the award ceremony which was quite a surprise for us. Take a look at the image above. The flag of “Chinese Taipei” has the Olympics rings on it! The citizens of this country must love Olympics a LOT! Actually, there is no country by that name. It is obviously a way for IOC to appease the country that wins the most medals in modern Olympics. You can read more about it and see the real flag of Taiwan here. So if a Taiwenese sportsperson wins the gold, they cannot see their flag being raised and neither will their anthem be played at the Olympics! For all the talk about peace, friendship and sportsmanship advocated by the Olympics, I think this is a big blow to that claim. I am not sure if I have the same warm feelings towards the Olympics anymore. (Update #1: I saw this coverage in Guardian newspaper about this flag controversy. Check out the comments under the article which are very interesting. Update #2: The flag swap has to extend to a commercial establishment in London too. Update #3: Olympic security snatches the official Taiwan flag from one of the spectators at the Taekwondo event)

Check out some more images from the Olympics below:

The controversy of empty seats is very true

Visa got a whole lot more card holders with this promotion?

The organizers included all day public transport passes with every ticket

A good reminder of who is the real boss!

Lot of Veggie Options

Le Tour De France Viewer’s Guide

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Gangadhar

We got to see the Tour De France this year since it passed by very close to where we live in France. When I came to know that we can watch the Tour De France in person, I did not know what to expect and how to plan. Internet searches did not yield much information and so here is my post which might help people who are looking for this information in future.

As you know, the Tour De France is the annual endurance bike race which takes place in France and surrounding countries (understatement much?). If you want to check it out in person, the first thing to do is to check the route on the official website. Next thing is to decide if you want to see only the riders or to see the caravan also.

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The caravan is a circus like atmosphere of publicity cars, trucks and bikes which come bearing interesting acts and goodies (junk?) to the waiting public. Check out the gallery above to see the pictures of what we saw. From what I noticed, they seem to give out key chains, hats, grocery bags and snacks. There was a mad rush for all the goodies being thrown at the crowd. So if you are interested in maximizing your loot intake, find a place close to the policemen who are controlling the traffic. They seem to attract the most goodies aimed directly at their faces.

The other thing to note is that the caravan passes very close to the people standing on the side walk. It can be dangerous if anyone steps in front of a passing car by mistake. The Wikipedia entry for Tour De France has a list of people who died in collisions with the caravan. We noticed that the people throwing the goodies were making sure that they landed near the crowd’s feet (unless it happened to be a policeman!). Still we noticed many things flying off and landing in the path of the fast driving cars.

These caravans arrive at least 2 to 2.5 hours before the arrival of the bikers. The timings for the caravan will be announced on the website and they kept to their time. The 2012 caravan lasted for about 45 minutes. Since we had a lot of kids in our group, these 45 minutes went by really quick since we all enjoyed watching the show.

After the caravans pass, there will be around 1-1.5 hours before the riders arrive. As estimate of this time will also be announced on the tour website. This year, the riders arrived about 30-40 minutes later than the time announced on the website.

Watching the riders is obviously a big thrill. It is a lot of fun watching the different jersey winners go by. The only sad part is that if you are in the last stage, like we were, the peloton can pass by really quickly. For us, it went by in 20 seconds!

This is why one of my friends advised me to watch the last stage at the Champs-Elysee in Paris. Here the riders have to take 8 rounds in the same route. So you get to see them well. Also, if you are into goodies, this is where it all ends and the caravans will be unloading all on the crowd.

I hope this post helped. The next goal is to figure out how to guest ride with the Tour De France to hone our fitness to their elite level!

What The Acqui-Hire of Sparrow, Pulp, Wallet etc might tell us about Tech Entrepreneurship

Posted on July 20, 2012 by Gangadhar

Today, there were some buzz in the tech world about the acquisition of Sparrow by Google, Pulp and Wallet app makers Acrylic by Facebook. Getting their company acquired by a larger company to make their products bigger and stronger is a dream for most entrepreneurs. You can see from these posts (here and here) that these acquisitions (and many recent ones) were not really acquisitions but a hiring of the talented team behind these apps.

The customers are obviously unhappy about this since the products will get shelved and they might have no support or upgrades in the near future.

As an entrepreneur myself, I feel that entrepreneurs are in a tough spot. I understand how tight the money situation can be when you are building a product. If entrepreneurs who have built very successful products like Sparrow have to abandon their products to go work on other products at a larger companies, is the path for tech entrepreneurs very bleak?

My gut feel is that the tech economy where users expect most products to be free is partly responsible. Most web and mobile apps are expected to be free. If they even cost a dollar, they have to cross an extremely high bar in terms of customer expectations to be popular.If they have even the smallest of bugs, negative reviews on the stores can sink the product.

The app store model means that you pay once and get lifetime upgrades free of cost. New versions of the mobile operating systems come every year (for iOS) and every six months (for Android). The developers have to create updates to ensure that the app functions well under the new OS. But they won’t get any extra remuneration for the extra effort spent for the latest release.

So it makes sense that the founders having worked on their products for 2-3 years realize that they are better off being part of a larger company where they have better control on their financial life.

Unless, another explanation is that the larger company made an offer that they could not refuse. If you know which one it was, please let me know! As of now, I am going with the former.

Power of the internet and e-patients.net

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Gangadhar

As you might know, I am a member of the Society for Participatory Medicine (S4PM). They publish a blog called e-patients.net where empowered patients share their stories and exchange ideas on how to take control of their own healthcare.

Last week, I came across this awesome story of how these parents had to learn about DNA, gene mutation and medicine to understand what was going in their son’s body. It is quite technical and extremely interesting. If you have not read it yet, please do read it.

I shared this link with the members only listserv of the S4PM. This listserv is available for everyone to read here. E-patient Dave saw this post and published a blogpost on e-patients.net under the section – found on the net. Today, he shared that a mother contacted him to share that they saw this post and are contacting the doctor mentioned in the post. I really hope this helps their child. This is the reason for sharing such information on blogs. Even if it helps one person, it is completely worth it! Special thank you to Dave for posting this into the e-patients.net blog.

If you are not a member of S4PM, you should become a member to participate in the awesome discussion with the members of S4PM. It takes only $30/year to become a member.

Greek Hospitality

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Gangadhar

As some of you might know, I was in Athens for a conference to present our DiaLog app to the Mobile Monday Athens conference. You can click here to find out how it went.

Since the event happened during our family vacation, we decided to extend our vacation to Athens also. So I ended up in Athens with my family. This post is all about how the Greek people received us with warm hospitality. We want to go back there again and so should you!

We experienced this unique hospitality right from the moment we landed in Athens. We took the metro to our hotel since we always to live like the locals and not travel like tourists. This meant that we were able to get to the metro stop near the hotel but we did not have directions to get to the hotel from the stop (special thanks to Aurelija Sukeviciute, one of the conference organizers, for giving extremely precise directions to the metro stop!). I ended up asking for directions from the guy at the security booth at the station. He looked up the hotel on the internet and then invited me into the office to show me the google maps and explain the directions to the hotel! Not many public officials will do this for tourists.

After the conference was over, Vicki Kolovou and her team of organizers were going to a Greek tavern for a late dinner. They not only invited me to join them but also my wife and son too! Paul Uza and Aurelija (Two of the organizers) actually came back to the hotel with me, then walked to the tavern with all of us explaining the history and background of all the places that we encountered along the way. We thoroughly enjoyed the tour of the Athens area given by someone who lives here and is aware of the history!

View of the Parthenon from our hotel room

A couple of days later, we went to visit the Panathenaic Stadium where the 1896 olympics was held. After our visit, we went to a near by park where my son wanted to play. We encountered Andreas Constantinou, one of the co-founders of the MoMoAth event, here with his family. We got to talk with him and his wife. When we were about to leave, they invited us to join them for dinner in the evening. We Indians are very familiar with this kind of hospitality. When we meet new people and if we like them, we tend to invite them to our family dinners almost immediately. We have not seen this in any of the western societies that we have lived in. We were really touched by their gesture.

There was this other time when we got lost and asked for directions from a lady running a store. We asked for directions to the metro station which was our landmark to the hotel. She gave us directions but she also wanted to make sure that we took the shortest path and not be tired by going to the metro station first before going to the hotel. This was something that we noticed in almost everyone we encountered. They did not just want to help us, but they REALLY wanted to be helpful by giving us the most efficient, easy ways to get to our destination.

We had heard that the Greek coffee is very different and it should be tried while in Greece. I enquired at the front desk of the hotel if they served Greek coffee. One of the ladies who serves breakfast was also there and she immediately told me – “I will make Greek Coffee for you along with your breakfast”. She came to our table, asked for how we wanted the coffee and made it for us even though it was NOT on the menu. She also refused to charge for the coffee since she wanted our stay to be memorable and nice!

These are the positive memories that I remember after two weeks out. There were many more that I do not remember. It is amazing that the Greeks are such amazing hosts. Coupled with their awesome history, I feel Greece is an awesome country to visit!