Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Oh, it isn't on the Menu card ? 

My phone seems to have developed a most unusual problem lately. The keys in the middle column refuse to work. So, the numbers 2, 5, 8 and 0 are unusable, along with the letters of the alphabet connected to them. This means that I've been replying to messsages in the last couple of days with a highly restricted character set ! While this is a very interesting way to amuse oneself when there is nothing else to do, it is highly exasperating when I have far too many deadlines to meet, and no time to have it repaired ! This of course will make for an interesting exercise to give to students , if I go to KV sometime to talk to them again - Convey a given message using only a restricted alphabet set:-)

Horace Slughorn apparently used the Felix Felicis twice in his life. If I had two vials of those with me, I would use one now... :-)

6 comments:

Neeraja said...

That will be interesting - that's actually a part of my research as well ;). We take communication for granted and don't think about how unsettling it is to face even such seemingly "small" issues :). But good luck with your deadlines, and hopefully you get a new phone soon!

Karthik said...

Neeraja, It has passed the stage where it seemed interesting to me :P Maybe when I get a new phone or have this one repaired, I might redevelop a renewed interest :-)

On a more serious note, fascinating that you do research on this! I don't know much about this, but I think it must be quite hard to devise experiments to draw the right conclusions in these areas.

Neeraja said...

Is your phone fixed yet? ;)

Yeah, it's challenging to conduct experiments, collect data and come to the "right" conclusions :). There are so many interrelated things that come into play - a person's personality, the device, their communication style etc...

Karthik said...

It's not fixed yet. It's ok for now since I don't use it much anyway :-)

That's what I was thinking. In engineering, it's usually not difficult to narrow down each contributing factor's influence on the result!

Neeraja said...

See, the problem is I am trying to address this research from an Engineering standpoint - since that's the department I am in :). Engineering + social research is a curious mix... hard to get either sides of the party to converge :)

Karthik said...

Neeraja, that sounds very interesting! I'm curious as to how people approach engineering + social research and what are the kinds of problems being solved in the area. I'll look up the net for info on human factors:-) Ya, convincing one bunch of people is hard enough, so I can try to imagine how it must be :-)