The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

I’m spending the next few days in Kuala Lumpur for “Silicon Valley Comes to Malaysia”. It’s part of Startup Malaysia. I’ll be talking about being a ‘global startup’, and basically trying to share as much knowledge and experience as I can with the 800 entrepreneurs who were selected to attend from Malaysia.

Then, I head to Singapore, Shenzhen and Seoul to do some NFC research. We’ll be meeting with the folks in the Singaporean government responsible for implementing NFC and also seeing factories where RFID tags are manufactured. We were recently just funded and plan to be a lot more aggressive with our growth. Asia is where it’s at.

When clouds of pain loom in the sky
When a shadow of sadness flickers by
When a tear finds its way to the eye
When fear keeps the loneliness alive
I try and console my heart
Why is it that you cry? I ask

This is only what life imparts
These deep silences within
Have been handed out to all by time
Everyone’s story has a little sorrow
Everyone’s share has a little sunshine

No need for water in your eyes
Every moment can be a new life
Why do you let them pass you by?
Oh heart, why is it that you cry?

Unfortunately not written by me, but by the peerless Javed Akhtar, in Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.

Tabloid Hack Attack on Royals, and Beyond

BY THE SPRING of this year, News International’s papers had firmly switched their support from Labour to the Tories. An avalanche of unforgiving coverage culminated on April 8, one month before the general election, in a Sun story headlined “Brown’s a Clown.” Brown’s strategists assumed that Murdoch’s motives were not purely ideological. They drew up a campaign document conjuring Murdoch’s wish list should David Cameron become prime minister. Among the top items they identified was the weakening of the government-financed BBC, one of Murdoch’s biggest competitors and long a target of criticism from News International executives. On May 11, David Cameron officially assumed the position and elevated Coulson to the head of communications. Within the week, Rupert Murdoch arrived at 10 Downing Street for a private meeting with the new prime minister. Cameron’s administration criticized the BBC in July for “extraordinary and outrageous waste” during difficult financial times and proposed cutting its budget.

Also, +1 to The Guardian for pursuing this.

WHILE OCCASIONAL articles appeared about the various goings-on at News of the World, the scandal was somewhat of a nonscandal in the other tabloids. But The Guardian, a Labour-oriented paper with an undisguised disdain for Murdoch’s publications, aggressively pursued the hacking episode.

I wasn’t nervous, til I saw the tank and the owner told me that it was natural or even good to feel nervous before entering. One thing’s for sure, these things aren’t designed by Apple.

The first surreal sensations I had were that I was moving around in the tank, floating right to left, left to right, until I realised I was completely stationary (the tank wasn’t big enough for me to move as much as I felt I was).

It was definitely weird there being no difference between having your eyes open and closed. In fact it was very disconcerting at first that you could see NOTHING, no matter how hard you tried, or in my case, in the expectation that my eyes would eventually adapt to the dark and I’d be able to see the inside of the tank.

If you ever have any doubts that the world we see, hear, feel and experience is a construct of the mind, then you should spend some time in a sensory deprivation tank (which is what flotation tanks are sometimes called, along with isolation tanks). There were periods when I would open my eyes and I felt like I was floating in a big room (my eyes constructed a ceiling about 8 feet above me, when I knew that I only had maybe 1.5 feet of space above my head). I think my brain found it very weird to be deprived of any sensory stimulation and was trying to make sense of what was happening (when was the last time you felt like you were nowhere?).

I was letting my mind wander freely, following my thoughts where they would take me. I had the feeling of having all the time in the world to think, which I don’t think many of us feel in day to day life (we’re always working to deadlines, and have places to be). It was refreshing. At the same time, at the end of the float, I didn’t feel like it dragged or that I had been in there for ages. It actually felt like it passed fairly quickly (it was an hour long).

There were periods where I could feel myself seeking stimulation of some sort. So I moved my arms and ‘accidentally’ touched the side of the tank just to have some sort of feeling. I think it’s very weird for our brains not to be continually stimulated.

I did feel myself relax during the float and eventually my breathing slowed and I felt content. I noticed that I became hyper-aware about my body. Any sensations I felt through my legs, arms, neck became much more heightened. I felt a slight ache in my lower spine for a few moments and it felt like that was my body telling me to fix my posture or to stop spending so much time sitting.

When I walked outside the center, I did notice that I looked at the world passing by in a slightly different way. Cars were streaming down Hyde Street and I could sense the rush everyone was in. After a while I think we forget that we are also a part of this continuous rush. It’d be beneficial to slow down once in a while, and just introspect, and notice the speed with which we otherwise operate.

We’re surrounded by things these days (especially smartphones) that are like attention leeches on our brain, continually sucking away our attention. I’ve felt like this for a long time and just spent 6 months without a smartphone. Continual stimulus is bad, and smartphones and social services in general are optimised to continually take your attention and make you addicted. A little bit of meditation (which is basically what a flotation tank helps you do) is a good way to fight back.

For more information there’s always wikipedia.

This is kinda what the tank looked like:

And this is where I went (recommended by Harjeet, who’s been experimenting with it for a while.

In a word, this is freaking amazing.

In case you hadn’t heard, something fairly radical has happened in the world of early-stage investing in Silicon Valley. Every Y Combinator company will receive an extra $150k investment (if they want it) on fairly generous terms, to top up the seed amounts that YC puts in.

From an entrepreneur’s perspective (I’ll be doing Y Combinator for the second time this summer), this is fantastic. Obviously the news has generated some debate, with some saying Yuri Milner may be a threat to Silicon Valley, and people are forgetting that this is simply an offer, and not an obligation to the startups, that any investor could have made previously too.

What’s crucial however, is what the entrepreneurs think (it should not be surprising that other investors think this deal is ‘threatening’). There was a video of the announcement on the Anybots site (since taken down), and you can see the current YC founders spontaneously clap after the announcement is made.

I’ll tell you how this changes things (though I hope I’m not jinxing anything and that this deals persists til the next round).

After demo day, at the end of the three months of YC, for better or worse your focus turns towards raising investment. Raising investment can be a fatal distraction, you are no longer working on product, you spend your time trying to persuade investors about a vision, when you yourself know that the vision will likely change. Quite frankly, it’s horrible to have people say no to you, and have 20+ meetings of which only a few are genuinely useful.

Now, with $150k, you can time your investment raising better. You don’t have to immediately do it after YC. If your product takes 6 months to build rather than 3, this helps you.

And, it doesn’t make you any less scrappy. $150k doesn’t mean you’ll go an a hiring binge or throw parties or even get an office. What it does allow, however, is for you to hire a better designer, eat healthier, maybe take on an android contractor and have the mobile app launched 3 months earlier than scheduled. And, crucially, for the founders, it’ll allow you to focus more on building something and getting users in the all important early stages.

For that reason, I’m even more excited about doing YC this summer.

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,700 times in 2010. That’s about 14 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 3 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 112 posts.

The busiest day of the year was November 29th with 310 views. The most popular post that day was About.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, harjtaggar.com, facebook.com, sikhcentennialfoundation.com, and bbc.co.uk.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for kulveer taggar, what should a billionaire give and what should you, taggar, facebook, and kulveer.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

About May 2007
2 comments

What Should a Billionaire Give, and What Should You? December 2006
1 comment

BBC Viewpoints March 2008

new facebook interface September 2006

England, Germany and the end of my World Cup trip July 2010
2 comments

I’m back in Vancouver. I had a super time in South Africa. The World Cup is definitely the biggest party in the world, and to anyone who considers themselves a football fan, I’d heavily recommend going to it at least once in your life. Brazil 2014 looks very appealing and I know people who are starting to save for it now.

As the tournament progressed and teams were knocked out, one thing I noticed was the make up of the fans changing. The great thing about the group stages are that fans from every country are there. It was a bit sad, for example, when the Mexicans, Swiss and Americans left.

Generally, we don’t hear much about football in South America, Asia and even Africa. Encountering fans from those countries, however, really does drill home to you how much of a global game football is, and how people are so passionate about it the world over. And just as our news focuses so exclusively on England and our players, it’s nice to see that other countries typically enter the World Cup as enthusiastic, optimistic and hopeful as we are, even if the targets are different (and probably more realistic).

After the England-USA match, I went to watch Brazil vs. N. Korea at Ellis Park in Jo-burg. This game wasn’t very eventful (apart from me nearly freezing to death), but it had a big curiosity factor because of the North Koreans. No they were not terrible footballers, and yes they did have fans, 300 of them, who were apparently hand-picked to come and support the team, and did not know each other. Their ring-leader ensured they all cheered in co-ordination, which was funny to watch. I was hoping for an upset but Maicon (who had a fab tournament) saw to that. Still, keeping it to 0-0 at half-time was a mini-achievement.

I then headed to Durban with Ryan, my host in Johannesburg, to catch the Spain-Switzerland match. This was a great game, I was sat with the Swiss fans, who were ecstatic at beating Spain. They were singing in the stadium for a long while after the final whistle, and as I was still down about the England result, I tried to find as many miserable Spanish fans as possible to talk to so that I could feel better. And boy were they miserable! Durban is a great city, surprisingly warm, and with a great beach on which all the fan activity was centred. This was the first of many long drives I would do in South Africa.

Next up was Cape Town, where England were playing Algeria. Again, before the match the atmosphere was incredible. Us silly England fans had managed to deceive ourselves that we were actually a good team and that we’d beat Algeria. The stadium was fantastic. However, this game was probably the lowest point of the trip for me. I spent the entire next day in my room pretty miserable. Firstly, the fans I were sitting next to were ridiculous. It hadn’t even been 2 minutes and a very vocal fan nearby was shouting his head off about Steven Gerrard being crap and how Joe Cole should replace him. The guy next to me passionately hated Emile Heskey and was clamouring for Peter Crouch to play, and I foolishly reminded him that Crouch wasn’t all that (didn’t he end the season as a substitute for Spurs?), and the guy went nuts. He accused me of not watching England games (and I fear, of not being a true England fan because I’m ethnically Indian), and did the typical chav aggressive thing of leaning into you as they talk and generally becoming quite unpleasant. I need to learn to not debate people in the stadium, but I can’t help myself when I hear people spout the rubbish that our tabloids write (criticising the players for how much they earn, for example).

Anyhow, the vast majority of fans continued supporting the team, yes we played rubbish, but it was only a small segment of fans behind the goal that actually did the much reported booing after the game. Everyone was very disappointed, but I was expecting the Algerians to defend solidly and they are not a bad team, they beat the African champions to qualify for the tournament after all.

My spirits were eventually lifted by the owner of the guesthouse I stayed in in Cape Town. He pointed out that some England fans had draped a flag over the edge of Table Mountain, which could be seen from all across the city. He then offered to take me on a drive around the city, in his vintage 30 year old pristine Merc. I found out that he collected them and had 3. As a proud Cape Townian he was eager to show me how beautiful the city and surrounding areas were and we had an interesting discussion about the politics of the region, FIFA and their corruptness, and Nelson Mandela. Interestingly enough, I also found out that his mother worked for the British Secret Services.

My next match was Portugal vs. North Korea, also in Cape Town, which was exciting for me as I was right by the pitch and genuinely thought that if I shouted loud enough, Cristiano Ronaldo would be able to hear me and I’d be able to somehow persuade him to come back to United. After about 5 minutes of shouting “Ronny” (his MUFC nickname), I realised this wasn’t working, and instead proceeded to watch the Portuguese score 7 goals. I also realised that he is that vain, as he checked himself out on the big screens in the stadium after every piece of skill he did.

England’s final group match was in Port Elizabeth, an 8 hour drive from Cape Town. It’s the longest drive I’ve ever done, but it’s on the famous Garden Route along the south coast, which makes it quite easy. You see spectacular views pretty much all the way (or in my case, until it gets dark). Port Elizabeth is an industrial city, and is probably my least favourite place in SA. I’m sure I was ripped off for my accommodation that night, the first time I felt that way in South Africa. The game itself however was probably one of the highlights of the trip. England played really well (i.e. they managed to follow their manager’s instructions and press the opposition players in possession), and we should have won the group. This is why being an England fan sucks so much, if they were outright crap you’d have no hope, but every now and then they put on a performance which makes you think they can actually play (beating Croatia 4-1 away, beating Holland 4-1 in 96, the 5-1 hammering of Germany, beating Argentina in 02 etc).

At the end, I was running around ecstatic in the stadium, until I found out we finished second because of Landon Donovan’s goal for the US. This was a big blow, I now had tickets to the wrong matches, and it meant we’d end up playing Germany, which could only end in defeat.

I then flew back to Johannesburg, and experienced a bit of the nightlife, which is lively, but entails passive smoking a pack of cigarettes over the course of the night. Not fun. I find Joburg’s alleged “no-go neighbourhoods” really weird. The places where it’s “safe” to hang out are random giant malls/shopping areas that are surrounded by massive walls. Apparently I heard that some American fans thought the walls were to keep the animals out. Haha.

It’s not safe to walk from here to there allegedly, and that just puts you in a funny frame of mind. And I hate to say it, but it also very much felt like apartheid, but by another name. Yes black people are allowed everywhere, but there’s still an apartheid of opportunity between the blacks and whites. Perhaps calling it economic apartheid is a better way to describe it.

Since we had tickets to the group winners match, we drove to Rustenburg the next day to watch USA vs. Ghana. I was torn on who to support, but sided with the Ghanaians as it would be terrible for all the African teams to be out of the Cup. That night after the game, we drove to Sun City, a mini-vegas like attraction they’ve built in the middle of nowhere, and where the Ghana team ended up staying. It’s been reported about their relaxed attitude during the tournament, and I saw it first hand as all the players were just hanging out, talking, laughing and relaxing with the fans. I took a pic with Gyan, the player who ended up missing the crucial penalty against Uruguay.

Then, it was a mad 500km dash to Bloemfontein to watch England vs. Germany the next morning. It took us approximately 6 hours to get there, and we arrived about 20 minutes before kick-off (after a mildly scary encounter with a dodgy cop). We were seated with the German fans. The only possible thing that can make a German goal against England worse, is a German goal against England when you are sitting in the midst of hundreds of wildly celebrating Germans. This was also one of the lows of the trip, but really, I never expected us to win. My theory is that a fully fit England team has the potential to match most teams in the world, but the moment we lose a few players, we aren’t good enough. And that’s what happens every tournament (apart from in 96 when they stayed fit and we got to the Euro semis). 98 – Beckham is sent off, 02 – Gerrard missing, Beckham unfit, 04 – Rooney breaks foot, 06 – Rooney unfit, Owen breaks knee, 10 – Ferdinand, Owen and Beckham missing. I genuinely think with Ferdinand, we wouldn’t have conceded that ridiculous first goal from a goal-kick, nor those several counter-attack goals. Oh, I must qualify the above by saying I assume we have a decent keeper, and I don’t count David James as good enough. He made some good saves, but the second goal he turned away from the ball and the third goal he dived out of the way! I also think the disallowed goal impacted the game. It deflated England. I could see the ball cross the line from my seat, and as soon it happened I turned to look at the linesman who was madly sprinting back towards the line. He obviously was out of position to judge, and then their keeper did the right thing and acted like nothing happened. If we were Brazilian/Italian/Spanish we would have just all ignored the referee and instantly gone and celebrated the goal by the corner-flag, thereby pressuring them to give us the goal. But we are England, and we suck at referee manipulation.

This is when I had my second altercation with an England fan. In a bar afterwards, I was having a friendly chat with some fans until one guy started saying Capello was rubbish and wrong for the job because he’s foreign. I then reminded the fan about the last time we had an English coach, we actually failed to qualify for the tournament, and his face went red and I was told to “move away”. Twat.

At this point, I think I realised I wouldn’t stay for the whole tournament, and was looking for ways to sell tickets. As it turns out, I ended up going to one more game, Argentina vs. Germany, which unfortunately the Germans won. It was still very cool to watch Messi in the flesh and to think that I was only a hundred metres or so away from one of the all-time greats in the game, Diego Maradona.

And thus ended my trip. I sold my tickets to a dutch guy who paid in cash and who kept changing the location of our meeting point, from my hotel lobby to his hotel lobby, and then to his hotel room, which left me somewhat apprehensive. I think he was a bit of a big shot because he knew all the hotel managers (and who carries thousands of USD around with them?!). But, everything was fine.

If you are into football, then going to a World Cup is possibly the best thing you can do. It feels like being in football heaven, you can watch matches everyday, go to the games, engage with pretty much anyone about football, and have a holiday at the same time. I’m really glad I did it, and would heavily recommend South Africa to anyone (bar Jo’burg and Port Elizabeth). If you stay near the coasts, you’ll be fine. I didn’t do a proper safari but still got to see some animals in a national park. It is quite inspiring to have wild animals wander freely around you.

Finally, an extended trip anywhere always beats a short trip as you become more of a traveller, and less of a tourist with assumptions. Based on my gap year 6 month world-trip, I believe it takes at least two weeks to genuinely pick up the vibe of a place.

And with that, it’s back to reality for me.