Learning to write smaller sentences

I have started to use Twitter. There are many things I'd like to write about that do not merit a blog post. Twitter is the right place to scribble in such cases. I hope to be a more regular writer using the new medium :)

Testing Code Highlighting Redux

I have been playing around with adding syntax highlighting for Scheme using syntaxhighlighter (albeit an old version of the tool). Here is a little test to see if it worked. (define (probe name connector) ;; comment (define (print-probe value) (newline) (display "Probe: ") (display name) (display " = ") (display value)) (define (process-new-value) (print-probe (get-value connector))) (define (process-forget-value) (print-probe "?")) (define (me request) (cond ((eq? request 'I-have-a-value) (process-new-value)) ((eq? request 'I-lost-my-value) (process-forget-value)) (else (error "Unknown request -- PROBE" request)))) (connect connector me) me)

Bank Notes

I recently had to deposit money into a friend's account. He has an account with State Bank of India, Trivandrum branch. For those of you not from around here, that branch is in a city in a different state. All I had to do was:

1. Locate the nearest SBI branch
2. Make the deposit

I tried to locate the nearest branch using SBI's Branch Locator. After a few minutes of fiddling with the unwieldy search interface I located a branch using - what else - Google. According to the page the branch had the following "alternate channels" (facilities?) : Internet banking, Core banking, ATM(s). Great, that is all I needed.

Armed with this information I visited the bank and presented my request. I was promptly informed that this particular branch would only let me make deposits if the target account belonged to this branch. So much for "core banking".

All was not lost yet. I recalled another branch located in St. Marks road and asked if visiting that one would help. Unfortunately, no. That particular branch was for "specialized personal banking" whereas I needed a "general branch". The nearest one was a good 10 Km away. I later found that "general branch" is a vaguely defined concept; the "advanced options" section of SBI's Branch Locator does not include it among the more than a dozen 'branch type' options listed.

With that I gave up on SBI. Fortunately my friend had an account with Indian Bank. IB was a little more forthcoming with information about their branches. I located the nearest one and went over. I found the printed pay-in slip a bit confusing in spite of instructions written in three languages. Luckily one of the employees hinted that what mattered was the inclusion of relevant information in the form; the "where" did not matter. So I filled up the form as best as I could and paid the money.

This episode left me with some questions.

• What is "core banking"? Does it exclude paying in money to accounts established in other states/cities/branches, especially in this day and age when all banks are touting their internet facilities?
• Why does a national bank with vast outreach make depositing money to a non-local account so difficult? Particularly in cities like Bangalore where a significant percentage of inhabitants are from other states.
• Who designs the pay-in slips used in banks? I feel that at least some of them need to be redesigned to make them easier to use. Something akin to usability in software applied to banking.

Request to Blogger

Please, please add a formatting tool/plug in/some other mechanism to highlight code syntax. It took me two frustrating hours of cutting and pasting to add code samples to this post. Even now, I am not completely happy with the results. And as automatically inserted line breaks (BR tags) and highlighter do not go together, I have to manually insert BR tags in all my posts :( Thankfully, I am not a prolific blogger ;) but even then it sucks.

I am not partial to any specific utility. In this case I followed the example set by other bloggers and used dp.SyntaxHighlighter. But I will (and so will most others, I suspect) gladly use your tool if you were to provide one.

C'mon guys, after all you are Google :)

Testing Code Highlighting

from project.app.test.functional.generator_tests import GeneratorTests

Presenting 'Blog Packager'

• Are you a would-be 'insightful blogger' who has the ideas but just cannot get the right words to express them?
• Are you a would-be 'hot blogger' craving the attention of a thousand raving fans?
• Are you a would-be 'celebrity blogger' who craves publicity but cannot merit even a hyperlink?
• Are you a would-be 'blogger-columnist' aspiring for a multi-thousand dollar contract from WashingtonPost.com but just cannot get noticed?
• Are you a would-be 'blogger-turned-author-turned-screenwriter-turned-director'^**?

If you are, rejoice! Salvation is at hand. I am starting a new company, the first ever Blog Packager in the world. Join up, offer me your ideas and before you know, I will be signing a contract with Washington Times and you will be basking in the limelight.

** Blog Packager will only take you as far as step 1, i.e. blogger. You will have to rely on a "book packager" and possibly a "screenplay packager" and a "directorial packager" to go any further.

So what is the deal?

Simple.

• You, the aspiring blogger, will approach me with your ideas and USD 250 (or Rs. 10,000) as retainer.
• I will hire jobless experts related to your field from wherever they can be found.
• The experts will then add flesh and sinews to your idea skeleton, in the process internalising (and thoroughly obfuscating) the ideas from all the bloggers they can find using Google.
• I will sign a contract with the first party interested in the blog and offer you a percentage of the contract money.
• In case you are too ugly to be photographed, we will supply you with photos to use in the blog.
• You can write about anything under the Sun. However, our market surveys indicate that narratives of the experiences of a non resident Indian teenager are in demand right now.

Some conditions apply.

• If the venture flops, it is solely your fault.
• If the venture fails and nobody hears about it, you can try again by paying an additional retainer fee.
• If anybody alleges intellectual theft you alone will take the blame.
• My name, the company's name or the names of any staff members will not figure on any apologies that you might be required to make.
• Copy editing is forbidden. All materials we choose to show you (which is rare) will have to be used as-is.

********

In case you are wondering, this entry was sparked by an article in the New York Times on the recent 'Opal Mehta' fiasco. The following paragraph from the article caught my attention:

In a statement yesterday afternoon Michael Pietsch, senior vice president and publisher of Little, Brown, said the company would not publish the second book under its contract with Alloy Entertainment, the "book packager" that helped Ms. Viswanathan develop the concept for "Opal" and shape its first four chapters. Alloy, rather than Ms. Viswanathan, signed the contract, believed to be worth $500,000 for two books, with Little, Brown. (Italics added)