Shantibhushan Naik

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  • Asahi Brewery Tour in Moriya, Ibaragi

    Asahi Brewery Tour in Moriya, Ibaragi

    We visited Asahi Ibaragi Brewery for a free factory tour today. The tour was a guided tour that left a very good impression on all of us.

    We booked our tour online from Asahi’s website. They offer options to reach their factory either using your own car or using a free bus ride from nearest station which is Moriya. If you take your own car, then you don’t get to taste the beer (don’t drink-n-drive) so your best bet is to use the free bus ride and not miss the chance to taste 3 different kinds of beer in the end of the tour.

    We took the 10 am bus from Moriya. The bus took just under 15 mins to reach the factory. It was a small mini-bus for about 30 people. Upon reaching the factory, we were warmly greeted by a tour guide from Asahi who confirmed our tour reservation and handed out a small numbered card assigned to us. The card was needed in the final beer tasting event at the end of our tour.

    Shortly thereafter, we were led into a small theater room to watch a short introduction video about Asahi. It was less of an advertising shot, but more about their emphasis on how Asahi strives to cultivate the best quality beer with a short video footage about their strict quality procedures.

    After watching the intro video, our tour guide led us towards the factory area. Along the hallway, she explained the various steps involved in making a high quality beer at Asahi. The factory is huge and the hallways are long so there’s plenty of guided posters along the walls to stop & read through the steps. It starts from cultivating wheat, barley, hops to fermentation and into filtration and distillation to final bottling. The tour-guide explained everything in plain simple terms and where we could, she showed around the factory areas from our hallway above. Because this was a weekend Sat tour, we didn’t get a chance to witness anything actual in action. Still, the experience of actually seeing it up close was remarkable.

    We did get a chance to actually eat barley and touch & smell the hops – key ingredients for a quality beer, followed by a tour of the entire beer production process from barley-mashing to packaging.

    Towards the end, we enjoyed freshly brewed beer in open-area tasting room. The entire tour lasts about 90 minutes. Just before heading back to our return tour bus, we did some gift shopping at a small shop near the entrance. I particularly chose to pick some cakes made out of beer & whiskey (yes!) and some high cacao chocolates (again to go with whiskey!). There aren’t too many souvenirs – mostly some snacks, bottles of whiskey, beer glasses, paper-clips and T-shirts with Asahi written on it.


    It was a wonderful experience with Asahi. I definitely suggest visiting the brewery with your family & kids.

    Kanpai!

  • Good artists copy; great artists steal

    Good artists copy; great artists steal

    Many of us associate this rather unethical quote with Steve Jobs of Apple. At least that’s where I heard it first. The second time around I came across this quote was in Cringley’s excellent book Accidental Empires.  The opinions are no doubt sound, and does make one ponder about the real experiences these famous entrepreneurs went through before getting at where they are.

    I must admit, I liked the final passage about computing as a transitional technology. The actual paragraph as quoted from Cringley’s book goes something like this-

    “We overestimate change in the short-term by supposing that dominant software architectures are going to change practically overnight, without an accompanying change in the installed hardware base. But we also underestimate change by not anticipating new uses for computers that will probably drive us overnight into a new type of hardware. It’s the texture of the change that we can’t anticipate. So when we finally get a PC in every home, it’s more likely to be as a cellular phone with sophisticated computing ability thrown in almost as an after thought, or it will be an ancillary function to a 64-bit Nintendo machine, because people need to communicate and be entertained, but they don’t really need to compute.

    Computing is a transitional technology. We don’t compute to compute, we compute to design airplane wings, simulate oil fields, and calculate our taxes. We compute to plan businesses and then to understand why they failed. All these things, while parading as computing tasks, are really experiences. We can have enough power, but we can never have enough experience, which is why computing is beginning a transition from being a method of data processing to being a method of communication.

    People care about people. We watch version after version of the same seven stories on television simply for that reason. More than 80 percent of our brains are devoted to processing visual in formation, because that’s how we most directly perceive the world around us. In time, all this will be mirrored in new computing technologies. We’re heading on a journey that will result, by the middle of the next decade, in there being no more phones or televisions or computers. Instead, there will be billions of devices that perform all three functions, and by doing so,will tie us all together and into the whole body of human knowledge.”

    I must admit the opinions are very plausible. It is more “correct” to consider technology as a transition than destination. Indeed … ! Success does look planned in retrospect.

    Yet another context set off echoing my own thoughts in the same book, which goes like this-

    “It was in the clay room, a closet filled with plastic bags of gray muck at the back of Mr. Ziska’s art room, where I made my move. For the first time ever, I found myself standing alone with Nancy Wilkins, the love of my life, the girl of my dreams. She was a vision in her green and black plaid skirt and white blouse, with little flecks of clay dusted across her glasses. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail, her teeth were in braces.

    ‘Run away with me, Nancy,’ I said, wrapping my arms around her from behind. Forget for a moment, as I obviously did, that we were both 13 years old, trapped in the eighth grade, and had nowhere to run away to. ‘Why would I want to run away?’ Nancy responded, gently twisting free. ‘Let’s stay here and have fun with everyone else.’ It wasn’t a rejection, really. There had been no screams, no slaps, no frenzied pounding on the door by Earl Ziska, eager to throw his 120 pounds of fighting fury against me for making a pass at one of his art students. And she’d used the word let’s, so maybe I had a chance. Still,Nancy’s was a call to mediocrity, to being just like all the other kids.

    Running away still sounded better to me.

    What I really had in mind was not running away but running toward something, toward a future where I was older (16 would do it, I reckoned) and taller and had lots of money and could live out my fantasies with impunity, Nancy Wilkins at my side. But I couldn’t say that. It wouldn’t have been cool to say, ‘Come with me to a place where I am taller.’

    We never ran anywhere together, Nancy and I. It was clear from that moment in the clay room that she was content to live her life in formation with everyone else’s and to limit her goals to within one standard deviation on the upside of average. Like nearly everyone else in school and in the world, she wanted more than anything else to be just like her best friends. Only prettier, of course.

    Fitting in is the root of culture. Staying here and having fun with everyone else is what allows societies to function, but it’s not a source of progress. Progress comes from discord—from doing new things in new ways, from running away to something new, even when it means giving up that chance to have fun with the old gang.

    To engineers—really good ones, interested in making progress—the best of all possible worlds would be one in which technologies competed continuously and only the best technologies survived. Whether the good stuff came from an established company, a start-up, or even from Earl Ziska wouldn’t matter. But it usually does matter because the real world, the one we live in, is a world of dollars, not sense. It’s a world where commercial interests are entrenched and consumers typically pay closer attention to what everyone else is buying than to whether what they are buying is any good. In this real world, then, the most successful products become standards against which all other products are measured, not for their performance or cleverness but for the extent to which they are like that standard.”

    It is like looking straight in the mirror talking to myself. How many times do I feel the same way? Mediocrity is considered normal, and anything that challenges that, even sarcastic humor, is seen as an insult or even a challenge to intellect blinded by a zeal to fit “in” no matter what it means for oneself.

    A good memo of the thoughts that concern me as an entrepreneur set out to change the very same world I’ve lived in.

  • 9i9 is me

    9i9 is me

    When you use Google services, you trust us with your information. This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it. This is important; we hope you will take time to read it carefully. And remember, you can find controls to manage your information and protect your privacy and security at My Account.
    There are many different ways you can use our services – to search for and share information, to communicate with other people or to create new content. When you share information with us, for example by creating a Google Account, we can make those services even better – to show you more relevant search results and ads, to help you connect with people or to make sharing with others quicker and easier. As you use our services, we want you to be clear how we’re using information and the ways in which you can protect your privacy.
    Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will not reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy without your explicit consent. We will post any privacy policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, for certain services, email notification of privacy policy changes). We will also keep prior versions of this Privacy Policy in an archive for your review.
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  • I feel great on my birthday

    As I turn 34 today, I really do appreciate all of my family, best friends, near-n-dear ones who all have always been with me. In fact, I feel younger as I grow 34 today. Looking forward to lots of new experiences, tons of energy, and heaps of fun growing ahead 🙂

  • Entrepreneurs bandwagon spirit

    Entrepreneurs bandwagon spirit

    My latest entrepreneurial endeavors about creating new products has been rewarding. There is so much to learn, understand and explore to find an idea, worth all the effort and so much important to me. I personally experienced a constant surge of determination when trying to make products such as Docs9 and 5w1h. Under a healthy blanket of tension, there is something wonderful of having accomplished these. I have realized strongly that something, anything if it means important to you is always worth pursuing for.

    I learnt alot. Most important, I am learning about how to keep the main thing the main thing. I find it so easy to get lost in details when you are on top of creating a product. The good news is that all of this is do-able. Even at a small pace, even in tiny amounts the focus on main thing is important. The focus, as I call it, is the sole reason for all of your efforts. It could be a purpose, a reason, a burning desire, or simply put – an unconscious drive you feel, but cannot quite articulate. Whatever your definition, keeping your focus in sight immensely helps supporting your motivation and determination in your pursuit to achieve what you are set for.

    For example, I love technology. What more can be done with technology, is more interesting for me. My focus, as I believe now, is to make something out of technology, whatever that is. I set out to create my first product Docs9 – https://www.docs9.com/, and then the next one 5w1h – https://www.5w1h.co/ both with the same burning desire to make something useful out of technology. When I say ‘something’, I want to explain that it should be useful in some sense to others. The benefit that it would give to someone using it, or what someone can achieve by using it. In the world of technology, the benefits could be time-saving, entertainment, or financial.

    When I set out with Docs9, my whole focus was providing a simple, easy to use presentation platform. I wanted to have a platform that gives sharing a presentation the sole precedence. Nothing else. I resisted hard to provide (and inadvertently) repeat the temptation to provide editing, provide attachments and what other features I could simply cram into making another product that already exists in market. This hasn’t been easy, especially when introducing my product to someone. It usually enters into an implicit comparison with a similar product they already heard about. It becomes a sort of mental barrier for them to see through that frame of mind into my product and understand my motive behind the idea of collaboration through dialogue. Perhaps I could be exaggerating my bit, but I often get the impression that most of us think what we want isn’t really what we actually want. Most of what we want is a like watching through a stained glass and believing that what you see is true.

    On the positive side, there have been growing number of signups on Docs9, which is a great motivational boost for a young entrepreneur like myself, to believe that out there are users who see the side of collaboration. It feels great to be able to offer something of benefit to those, and keep persevering not just for sake of gratification but also for a sense of worth you believe you can do. This is my definition, not certainly what I want to borrow from what is generalized opinion of accomplishment. Put in other words, this is accomplishment as I see fit, and it makes my determination stronger. The (whole) point is that if you set to believe what you can achieve, then the best way is to find out is yourself. Right or wrong, success or failure comes after, not before you’ve tried what you really wanted to do.

    5w1h has been a different game altogether. I set out to do it not for any particular benefit at all. I just wanted to do it for myself. I just felt that I had to do it. I started with a simple one to one chat, then did this, then did that, then again did this, then again did that. At some point I was confused. At some point I felt to just leave it. But something was nagging, some dissatisfaction kept me pushing to do it, finish it, complete it. That is exactly what I did. One thing I have learnt while on Docs9 is to be able to trust your own self. Inspite of anything that would try to get in the way, I kept my focus on one simple thing – I want to do it. Whether it makes sense now (or ever), I believe that towards the end 5w1h has come up nicely together.

    I was happy to be able to get 5w1h out, satisfied of my work. Like an artist admires his art, I admire my work and feel happy about it. Same is the way I admire Docs9. I feel great about making Docs9, and judging by the steady signups, I believe that others feel the same way too.

    I jumped the entrepreneurship bandwagon with pure entrepreneurial spirit. I do not know where the journey will end, but I know where to start.

    No matter what, I will continue. No matter how, I will persevere. I think therefore I am.

  • Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

    Software is an art. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. Project SNOWFLAKE is an experiment to prove this through beautiful, minimalistic user interfaces. By suggesting alternate designs to some of most popular sites, this project wants to raise awareness on quality, beautiful, elegant human user interfaces.

    In many ways, this project is a bold attempt to refine our taste in software. Whenever I come across applications that mock a cockpit at best, I wonder if many of us really do appreciate good, quality software – especially the user interfaces? Quality on user interface can instill a sense of pleasantness, and many of us instinctively know that this year 2013 has been marked pronouncedly by responsive user interfaces.

    As part of SNOWFLAKE, I target some popular sites, some topics as a part of this independent experiment. Not surprisingly, meeting the basic requirements of any device, any browser support is no longer an issue. The time is perfect for fully responsive, and typographically adaptive user interfaces. Yet surprisingly, it is not a norm yet. It will be evident that fluid, beautiful, elegant user interfaces will prevail over geeky, complicated designs. Snowflake’s showcase demonstrates how elegant a user interface can be while retaining all of it’s usefulness. As is often the case, many beautiful user interfaces do exist. Some notable mentions will continue to get added in showcase, and I am delighted on this personal pursuit on beauty in human user interfaces, both spiritually and intellectually.

    Through SNOWFLAKE I strive for beauty conveyed through human software user interfaces, endeavoring to promoting human user interfaces towards a status equal to that of art or music.

  • You’re hacked

    “Whoa, Gmail account hacking attempt!”- my colleague told me the other day.

    It appears he got some kind of notification from Google, and this set his alarm bells ringing. He was not really sure why someone would bother to hack his account, he is just like everyone out there; a normal user. Still he showed a concerned look because at-least to him his Gmail account is important.

    I suggested him that perhaps that’s because he uses Android, he must have been using Google!Play to download apps. During that process of signing into Google!Play, browsing apps, choosing to download and install he must have invariably shared his email. Maybe, who knows? Who has time to review 25 check-boxes per app on what is shared, and what isn’t? Who thinks about the price (not just the 0.99$ for an app) you pay for having access to, consuming this ‘marketplace’? He seemed to agree, yet slowly shook his head in disbelief not really sure what to think. Slyly I also suggested this might be some sort of propaganda by Google itself! Somehow you have to be in the news, and the best way is to stir up something to keep people in a state of fear and the next thing you see is everyone taking their shot at it in their own crude manner, while Google happily analyses everything being said, heard, and decided about.

    We shared a jolly laugh, but that didn’t stop him from changing his password as first step. His account was not hacked, it was just a hack attempt! But even a possible theft attempt is enough to make him change his lock combinations; perhaps also including all his other online accounts elsewhere.

    This isn’t the only time I see this has happened. I look around myself every day. People staring at their smartphone screens, heads down, busy. Majority of these are ‘online’, feeding on information, reading, shopping, watching whatever it is that interests them online.

    I do that sometimes myself, but I am bit of an ‘offline’ type. And there is some background to this. A few weeks ago, I was Hacker News Tokyo’s Meetup Event, where a new acquaintance asked me what do I use my iPhone for. Unsurpassed, I calmly replied “Just for SMS-ing my wife, and occasionally as a phone. Once I am back home, and get online on WiFi, then perhaps to get app updates. I am still not convinced I should be feeding an economy that isn’t helping my growth in any way except by paying more”. He did not seem to buy that, but I went on to explain him – while I agree with having an iPhone, I don’t really agree spending money like I don’t care what is costs each month on having ‘online’ connectivity. The way I see it, smartphones have become a passing sensation but a powerful one. Entire industries have been caught in the tide of smartphones, and suddenly everyone is now a ‘smart’ phone owner. Recently, when I launched Docs9, and also Meteor – smartphones, tablets are important target for me. At the moment, I cannot ignore them. Not that I want to ignore, but given a chance I’d like to show everyone the bigger, deeper issue behind what I perceive this meaningless digital trend is about.

    Of course that is not what I explained to my friend at #hntokyo, instead I asked him does he really understand what, how much does he spend each month for staying ‘online’? Truth is no one really likes to go into such details. We don’t look into our water bills, electricity bills, restaurant bills with much scrutiny. Certainly, I don’t do either. The amount paid is affordable, we ignore. The amount paid is significant, we get concerned. That’s about it. Nothing solved, nothing owned. Millions around the world get what they can instantly when they want to have it online. That includes us who may have had something else in mind when we started, but now don’t even get time to really understand what is it we are doing online almost the entire day.

    There are legitimate uses of when I would really, badly, must be online. But once I stopped being online, I realized that all of that necessity was just something of my own imaginary need that wasn’t there before. I too did spend time, and money to ‘buffer’ youtube videos because I had nothing better to do while waiting for the train. Spending money became too easy. I too did aimlessly drive around using iPhone as a GPS, only to find that if I read the road signposts on which we are paying taxes for, I could have easily found out where I am headed very easily in the first place.

    Now I read an ebook, or play an offline game, or just take a nap when I commute. I no longer feel the urgency to ‘know’ what’s happening. I certainly make use of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn channels occasionally, but I certainly do not keep aside a dedicated task each day just to participate ‘social’ly. Why did I choose to excersice daily for dedicated 30 minutes instead?

    I see few problems in what’s happening with ‘digital literacy’ at the moment. I see that everyone today is just become addicted, even compelled to the pressures of keeping up with what’s everyone else is doing. This has no doubt been a universal human nature all along. Your neighbor has a better car, you want a better one too. Your friends do FB, you should be doing FB too! In the end the car dealer get’s more customers, FB gets more users. You have no legacy, no significance except in your own world. The car maker, and FB have a long-lasting, perhaps a grandiose legacy that even your great grandchildren will happily know about, but not you. Because you never bothered to have one. You are busy enjoying everything unimportant on FB, or not really loving anything about your car except that you have a same looking car as your neighbor did once.

    And the truth is all of this is fed by big companies such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo themselves in small ‘sweet’ doses to all of us. Do you like a new feature in Facebook? Impressed by how Google predicts your search? Don’t really know why, but you need a new Office upgrade?

    Take a moment, and try answering these question with sincerity. Not because I say so, but just because you think something doesn’t feel right in all of this.

    Think about what do you get, outside of just getting the ‘service’. What is the price you pay for? What is the price you are influencing on your family, the future generation to pay for? Your appetite is being fed by people who have access to you, and your needs – your Androids, Chromes, and your Google searches. What’s in it for you as a consumer? Just being treated ‘differently’ makes you a special customer? How about your kids? Do you have a future standard ’employee’ career-path for your kids already planned while their only aspirations are how to succeed ‘digitally’? Is your next biggest birthday gift an iPad?

    Quite frankly, would you feel alone if you aren’t online? Do you feel happy enjoying benefits of so called auto-updates, the feeling of being knowledgeable, yet always wanting to keep your smartphone vibrating beside your bedside in case you miss some latest witty post from someone?

    I was joking with some friends a while back that if a baby is born, the first thing that comes to your mind is to take a photo, and post it. You may not have even admired, or touched your baby yet, but ‘immediate’ post to your network is more vital than holding your baby, and forgetting what’s more important now. Getting a ‘Like’ is far more crucial for expecting mothers today!

    I strongly feel this behavior whenever I am browsing online. I get fed up real quick. There is just no ‘meaning’ anymore. Constant noise, constant barrage of nonsensical jokes, hilarious stuff without feeling ashamed, no ‘level’ of quality, no importance to ‘value’. See an accident, tweet about it. Go to a restaurant, post it on your wall. Find something different just share it without thinking twice. Because if it’s not you who shared it first, it will be somebody else.

    A related cause to effect, sometimes I come across HTML5 Rocks user debates. Some like me, do feel the whole ‘Google’ monopoly behind pushing HTML5 standard. But there are others who unlike us see our comments as a problem hindering scientific progress of our society. Don’t we all want voice enabled search, don’t we all want Google!Glass, don’t we all want, ummm … what’s the next big thing I want – supersized Coke? Yeah, right. We also need oxygen capsules to become youthful again, don’t we?

    Teenagers, young, and brilliant generations are willfully contributing their knowledge, their ideas, their inventions to such big monopolies. Go, and happily sign off your idea to Google in your desperation to stand out in the crowd. Remember, it’s not you who is standing out, but that big huge logo behind you which rest of the world knows. Your only takeaway is the momentary praise, and some decent monetary benefit. Go ahead a few years, and you’re back to just someone who nobody remembers, or knows. All they care is how can they swap their month old Android to the latest cool looking one shipped by Google this month.

    My question – Is this the extent of our achievement as a human being? Is simply jumping the ‘buzz’ bandwagon the only sign of our digital literacy? Is our illusion that everybody is smart actually a modern tragedy, dumb people with smartphones!

    I respect Apple, but to me it’s not Apple. I really respect Steve Jobs. For whatever reasons, he has been the most influential person to me. You know when you feel ‘safe’ with your parent around as a kid. I felt the same when Steve Jobs was with us. His vision was certainly to give people the ‘best’ product. Not an experiment like Android, where you are just a test subject on which half-baked, immature features are tested, but at the end of the day you are the only one stuck paying the price. I honor, and respect people like Steve Jobs whose purpose was to make our lives better for our own benefit. I am sure that if allowed, Steve Jobs would have been more than thrilled to offer products for free just because the world needs to be a better place.

    I am doing a start-up, and the more I think of becoming a ‘producer’, the more I come across this influence, and the grip with how our generation has caught into. I want to give people tools to make their lives better, I want to give people intelligence to make their lives better, and I certainly want my kids to experience a life full of potentials. I want them to see a world of culture, values, respect, honor and above all – worthy accomplishments.

    Honestly I wish people just stop pretending smart trying to participate in digital world without being digitally literate. While to some digital presence is for fun, to some it has really become an identity, in fact a dual personality. More than that, it has given people an effective recluse to shut away the world around you, and admire at an artificially photoshopped beauty through your tiny screen. It’s like how medical practice has become all around the world – expensive than you could afford financially, and mentally. You are still the same, nobody updated you, nobody even knows about you. Is there an app you could download to answer this for you? Or is that a problem you should be solving for yourself already? If you are advised about health, yet if you keep eating junk food, anything a doctor can prescribe is cure. But if doctors see this as an opportunity to feed on your habits, get a lifelong steady source of health care income, why would any doctor care for ‘your’ health out of million others stranded to get inside for an imaginary diagnosis? Which is easier – being taken care of? Or taking care of yourself?

    Where is all of this talk heading to? Should we start some movement? Should we do something to change all of this?

    From what I have understood, we are all cultured to look upon someone – our idol, our image, our gods, our leaders. We ourselves are already convinced we will just @follow where the world will take us to. There is always a leader who needs to open their eyes, and make them see.

    Could it be any different this time?

    Could you, as a reader, think about this?

    Has your education, your effort to grow into the society taught you that your reach is just this far?

    Can you, as a responsible person, do something about it now?

  • Gifu Trip

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    Gifu Trip from Shantibhushan Naik on Vimeo.

    Trip to Gifu with my friends – Gary, Dinesh and Jose. We had an excellent weekend stay.

    [Translate]

  • Printer not connecting – Troubleshoot

    Didn’t realize turning on “TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper” service would solve the issue. The message “Printer spooler is not running” is completely misleading.

  • Weather in Tsukuba Japan

    Weather in Tsukuba Japan