2TB Portable Drive Comparison

New 2TB portable drives formatted to Mac Journaled file system straight out of the box. Tested using Black Magic Design's Disk Speed Test with a Macbook Pro. Read and write speed was nearly identical for all drives except the internal drive.

The Seagate Backup Plus Slim drive is the winner on all dimensions: speed, price, size, weight though the Ultra is a little cheaper. The Silicon Power rugged armor disk is, well, pretty darn rugged!

The WD My Passport (old) line is a drive I have been using for about 9 months and is getting fairly full. I have not diagnosed whether the speed difference is because the file system/directory is getting full, or whether the new drives are about twice as fast.

I have the most experience with Western Digital Drives, and have never had one go bad over many years. I'm not sure how to assess longevity of these portable drives...I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Healthcare Emergency in Cabarete, Dominican Republic

Today is a historic day for sailboat racing with Team Oracle USA winning America's cup using a boat with a hydrofoil while the discussion in national news is all about Obama Care and the opening of the healthcare exchange and the American Healthcare system in general. Well, my story touches on both topics!

At a recent MaiTai event in Cabarete, Dominican Republic, I bought a super cool hydrofoil board from Nick at www.mhlcustom.com. Riding a foil board with a kite is a little bit tricky to learn - basically you have to get used to a lot of power coming from the bottom of your board, about a meter below your feet! At sea level  water is about 750 times as dense as air. The "wing" on the bottom of the foil is about 1 square foot of total area. "Air adjusted", that's equivalent to about 750 square feet of kite. A 10m kite is about 100 square feet, so the power from the board is seven times as strong as that of the kite. In reality, the power doesn't feel that disparate, probably because either I have a math error, logic error, or because the way the foil rides is very different than the way the kite flies. But in any case, the power coming off the foil is strong.

The conditions in Cabarete bay are nearly perfect for learning to foil board - small waves on the inside, sandy beaches, and in the mornings, light wind. On this particular morning, I was the only kiter on the water as a foil lets you ride in extremely light wind. I was somewhere between my first and second hour using the foil, and was just getting the hang of it. Just enough to get that initial "cocky confidence" that frequently results in trouble. I starting riding a bit faster than normal, and then fell downwind of the board. I thought I was clear of it, but about a second later, something hit my head.

I put my hand on my head and it was quickly covered with blood. The white pad on my foil started turning red as did my vision. Not really that big a deal: heads bleed a lot, way out of proportion to the pain or the severity of the injury. I was a few hundred meters out and started to body drag back to shore - foil under one arm, flying the kite with the other hand. 

I went to to Laural's kite school / shop and one of the instructors there said I should go to the hospital as I'll need stitches. Here I was in 3rd World country (at least according to this map) needing healthcare. I was a bit worried! Laural showed up and took me to the local clinic - a small place right in downtown Cabarete called Playa Dorada Medical Center. 

I've had a number of cuts and other injuries - 6 stitches in Breckenridge, Colorado a couple of years ago, a rib dislocation issue in San Mateo, and a while back, tore an ACL playing soccer. In each of those cases, I sat in a waiting room at least an hour and the bill was over $2K. In the case of the ACL, I visited four emergency rooms and finally ended up at Stanford. After sitting around for over an hour, I walked - limped, actually - out after I called a doctor friend who said he would see me in the morning and there was probably nothing they could do anyway, other than give me pain killers.

My worries about healthcare in the DR were unfounded. The doctor showed up almost immediately and put a few stitches in my head. He cleaned up some coral I had in my foot and advised me on an asthma issue. He prescribed some antibiotics which they gave me on the spot - I didn't have to go to a pharmacy and wait in another line as you do in the US.  

The doctor asked if I had health insurance. I said I did, and he said I am better off not using it! I didn't fully understand his explanation, but he said something about the hassle and cost of dealing with the insurers in the US, and in the end, my out of pocket would be MORE if I used my insurance than if I just paid the bill. I was a bit skeptical, until I saw the bill: $100 for the doctors time, the hospital time, the stitches, and whatever else. $91 for the medicine.

Total time spent: about 1 hour. 

I was back on the water by 2.

Without a doubt, this was the best healthcare "emergency" experience I have ever had. And it's not even close: the service was excellent, there was no wait, the price was incredible, and there were far fewer hassles and forms to fill out. I was pretty concerned when I was initially hurt - seeing red trying to get to shore - but in the end, the whole thing was a great experience given the situation.

In trying to find a link to the clinic I went to, I found another post with a similar story: http://turftosurf.com/why-americans-should-leave-usa-for-medical-care/. That story talks about a different hospital - I was an a small medical clinic, but the overall experience and conclusion are similar.

In the end, it's not that the healthcare in the DR is particularly good. It's that ours is particularly bad. I know we can do better - I hope we figure this one out before I'm too old and need some serious care!

What is more expensive – the gas to drive a mile in a Hummer or the wear and tear on a Tesla Roadster battery?

When I bought my Roadster, reports said that driving a roadster costs just a few cents for the electricity. What about the rest of the costs? If you look at just the battery, the current price of a new Roadster battery is $40,000 plus installation costs! The estimated battery life is about 100,000 miles (less if you drive less than about 12k miles per year since the battery degrades without driving). That’s 40 cents PER MILE in the BEST CASE, or, for $4.00 gas, the equivalent of 10 miles per gallon! And that’s just for the battery wear-and-tear.

To be clear, this is the equivalent of the gas tank, NOT the gas. For an electric car, the actual fuel is both the electricity and the battery wear and tear, and just the battery part costs 40 cents per mile. A Hummer gets about 12 mpg highway and 10 mpg city, so at $4.00 gas, costs a bit under 34 cents per gallon highway and 40 cents per mile city.

I love my Roadster as it occupies a unique point in the price/performance/reliability envelope for a sports car. That said, unless the battery aspects of electric vehicles undergo a major overhaul, the economics of the battery alone will make the technology impractical, particularly for more mass market cars such as the Model S or X. 

Perhaps the EPA will start measuring “MPG” on electric cars to include the wear and tear on the battery so it's easier to see what is going on.

As it turns out, the Hummer is nearly 20% cheaper to drive on the highway than the Roadster for just the gas when compared to the wear and tear on the Roadster battery.

That said, I love my Roadster and I'm a huge fan of Tesla, but worried about the economics required for even a moderate main-stream success.

Learning from the Chinese government

I was recently in China - when going through immigration you get to rate the immigration officer. There are four buttons ranging from smiley face to sad face where you can provide feedback as to the level of service you received. I don't know what they do with the data, but I clearly the immigration officer is aware of the feedback mechanism and probably does a better / nicer job as a result.

After we sold Core Mobility, I forgot to update the DMV of my address and the registration on my Tesla expired last December. A nice officer in Palo Alto reminded me of that with a ticket, and then two days later, I'm pulled over in Los Gatos for the same thing! Nuts! Four months of daily driving with no issue, and then two tickets in a week! Sure would have been nice to get those tickets a few months ago since the late fees alone on the registration renewal were over $500!

I told the second officer that I already had a ticket, but he said he is unable to verify that. Strike one! Let's see, in today's connected world they can't look up whether I received a ticket? I sure hope the systems for finding real criminals are better than that!

Anyway, I pay the $1500 for the registration and send all the info to the traffic court hoping it ends the matter. Unfortunately, they don't get an automatic notification after the registration is up to date, even though I have to both pay for the registration and have another officer sign off on the ticket.

The ticket was issued April 2nd and I mailed the proof of registration to the traffic court on April 7th, just before leaving for China.

When I got back, I found the following in my snail mail (address redacted to protect the guilty!):

More than a few things wrong with this picture!
1) The date on the letter is February 1, 2011. That's off by over 2 months!
2) The letter refers to a citation from April 12, 2011. From the point of view of when they got this, that's in the future! The date on the citation is April 2, 2011.
3) The letter head is a template that is not filled out. For example, Branch Name shows as FACILTY_NAME
4) The letter says that I may inquire about the status 45 days after the date on the letter. The date on the letter is incorrect, and 45 days after the time I received this back is after I am supposed to appear in court!

Our tax dollars at work. As Bill Gates said in his TED talk: State Budgets are huge expenditures that undergo very little scrutiny. Unfortunately, the same is true for other areas of state operations.

I'd really like to have a feedback mechanism like the Chinese immigration department has!

And, of course, don't forget to use speech to text transcription services from Speechpad!

The New Office

My new company, Speechpad, just moved into a cool new office. We have a security guard (pictured) straight from Thailand who keeps us safe 24x7. Mike Scanlin, CEO of Born To Sell, is right down the hall and has been advising us on SEO techniques to help drive organic traffic to our site via search engine results. Born To Sell focuses on strategies for selling covered calls - it's a super cool site if you are interested in selling covered calls.

If you haven't seen Speechpad, please check it out. We use crowd-sourced techniques to deliver high-quality, low-cost transcriptions quickly. We've been working on the company for just over two years and have been successfully transcribing financial calls and recorded statements for insurance for most of that time.

Our current focus is on meeting transcriptions, a new market enabled by easy audio acquisition through phones. Please check us out - if you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact me!

Your help needed: who is this?

How much information is in a picture? What if you had 1000 people interpret the picture, creating that information? How about just finding out a few key pieces of information?

I once posted a "how-to" kiting video shot in Maui with an unknown rider, and heard back from the rider within a few days! That was an easy one, though - there just aren't that many kiters on Maui, and the community is closely linked. 

While on a boat in the Maldives, were were discussing how quickly we could track down someone in a picture that has a much broader search domain, and a bet evolved.

Setup: The pictures in this post were in the background of another picture (that included a kiter, of course!). They have been blown up and enhanced to better make out the relevant details. They were shot with a high resolution camera that included GPS tagging, so we know the time the picture was taken (5:07:05 PM local time - shortly before sunset), the location where it was taken (3 52.8661'0"N, 73 27.3889'0"E at sea level) and, of course, that they were taken in high resolution (4256 x 2832) so we could pull out the background.

We were discussing the power of crowd sourcing and the power and diversity of the crowd. Eventually a bet evolved: how long will it take to identify a dive shop given only some pictures? This boat is literally on the other side of the world from the US, in the South Male Atoll in the Maldives.

Here's what we know:

The pictures show the boat registration number and we have a blown up picture of presumably the dive master.

The satellite map is tagged with where the boat was seen in the South Male Atoll based on the GPS coordinates in the picture. The boat was heading north at the time and it looks like it's returning from a dive trip.



There is an MTurk job that points to this post and the associated geo-stamped pictures - assuming that information was kept in the upload - (we'll know soon enough - but the satellite picture and the coordinates in this post provide everything we need).

Cash for Clunkers: A Good Deal?

The cash for clunkers program cost tax payers $3 billion. In exchange, 700,000 Americans were able to get a new car at below market rates. Was this a good deal? Are there better ways to allocate this capital?

When making a cash outlay, one of the first questions should be to understand whether the money is being invested or spent. Expenses are things such as movies or dinners which have no residual economic value. Investments are things such as houses or stocks which generally have substantial residual, and even increasing, economic value. Cars are an interesting hybrid as they have residual value, but unless it becomes a collectors item, depreciates quickly and if not fully realized as an expense now, will become an expense as it’s fully depreciated over future years.

Providing discounted cars to a subset of Americans is something that benefits the few and has small, if negligible, ongoing economic value to the larger populace. The program was justified through the benefit of less pollution and better energy efficiency which benefits everyone, as well as spurring more auto sales to help struggling US auto makers.

If these are our goals: improve energy efficiency, reduce pollution, and help US auto makers, is there a better way to spend $3 billion? Rather than a one-time stimulus that benefits the few (one in 500), is there a program that can have on-going benefits for all Americans?

Tesla Motors, a US manufacturer of electric vehicles, recently announced installing five charging stations between San Francisco and LA so that their flagship car, the Tesla Roadster which has a 250 mile range, can make the trip. Total cost for these 5 charging stations: about $10000 each on average.

The energy dispensed by the charging station is free, justified by local merchants who foot the bill by driving traffic to their establishments. Roadster owners, who stop to charge their cars for three hours, will likely engage in commerce near the charging station. The cost of the electricity to charge the Roadster is around $2, so the merchants are paying $2 to have a potential customer in the vicinity for several hours looking for something to do.

Suppose we used the $3B for the clunkers program and built out electric charging stations instead? Could that achieve our goals of improving energy efficiency, reducing pollution, and helping US auto makers?

There are around 110,000 gas stations in the US. At the current price of $10,000 per charging station, we could install about 30,000 charging stations around the US. Assuming economies of scale, it’s not hard to imagine that 100,000 or more charging stations could be installed for the price of the clunkers program.

If we assume 50% or more of the cost of installing a charging station is labor, such a program would create a number of jobs, directly helping unemployment.

What we are left with is 50,000 to 100,000 free charging stations, subsidized by local merchants, to drive traffic to their stores. But what good does this do? Very few people can afford a Tesla!

This is actually where the large benefits take place. Over the last year, I have seen numerous companies that are building electric vehicles: bikes, motorcycles, and cars. In fact, there are over 100 companies that have been started to just build electric cars. With free charging stations covering the US, consumers will be very interested buying a new electric vehicle that takes advantage of this handout. And a number of entrepreneurs will be focused on building vehicles that can exploit the new grid, from a consumption as well as generation and storage standpoints. In short, we have created a new innovation platform.

But how do automakers benefit? Here we can look at other industries that have undergone a large technology leap, and examine what has happened. Recently, mobile phones went from being able to simply make basic calls to having cameras on them. This caused a rapid upgrade cycle, moving the average time a consumer keeps his phone from 24 months down to 18. The widespread availability of wireless data networks and high quality phone software is now causing another upgrade cycle to devices such as the iPhone and Android.

Whether these upgrades are captured by the existing players or new players depends on how well the companies are run, but in any case it’s a huge boon for the players who can get it right. Just look at Apple’s stock price or the buzz Google is getting for its Android operating system.

With this approach, for the same $3B, we would have:
• a national charging grid that enables electric vehicles to be charged at as many locations as the corner gas station
• an opportunity for merchants to drive traffic to their stores by subsidizing the energy using to charge the vehicles
• a massive upgrade cycle as entrepreneurs and consumers find innovative ways to use the electric grid
• a spike in employment as factories, stores, and other infrastructure are upgraded and built to fulfill the demand for electric vehicles
• much cleaner environment, as electric power is substantially cleaner than the internal combustion engine
• most likely, safer roads, as electric vehicles tend to be lighter and built out of modern materials
• drive innovation in battery and grid storage technologies, reducing costs and further increasing efficiency
• a tremendous opportunity for existing as well as new vehicle manufacturers to fill the demand to drive profits and employment

Rather than allocate another $3B, this program could be paid for via a national gas tax of two cents/gallon. This would further incentivize consumers to move toward electric vehicles since it would further pressure operating cost differences between gas and electricity, and bring prices closer in line with true costs, when deficits, national defense and pollution are taken into account.

Overall, upgrading the grid is likely a much better way to invest tax payer dollars and reap long term rewards compared to subsidizing car purchases for Americans who own “clunkers”.

NOTES:
From: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gallons_of_gas_does_america_use_a_year
US uses 9.3M barrels a day
42 gallons of gas per barrel

From: http://www.atr.org/presidential-math-cash-clunkers-spent-billion-a3816#
Removing clunkers will save 5M barrels a year

From: http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/09/charging-corridor/
Chargers cost 7-12k each
Subsidized by local merchants

John Mauldin 12/4/2009 newsletter:
All we did with this "Cash for Clunkers" thing was move cars forward that would have been bought later. You're not increasing sales down the road. Yeah, you're taking cars off the road and spare parts and stuff, but I think it's kind of a silly investment in dollars. But, what's $3 billion when we're wasting a trillion here and a trillion there? Still, it's disappointing.

Bruce Leak 12/9/2009 email:
Politics isn't about efficient use of capital. It is about special interest groups and playing to populace emotions. Subsidizing "green" car purchases pleases car manufacturers, suppliers, finance institutions, labor unions, dealers, environmentalists, local and state tax authorities, scrap recyclers and consumers. What's not to like?

When we're not driving autorickshaws

It's been a while since I've paid any attention to this blog and haven't really figured out a good reason to justify the time it takes to blog until I talked to Eric Ries who writes the blog at http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/. He said it's a great way to get feedback on your ideas, and immediately learn what was communicated clearly and what is up for debate. He mentioned he'd learned a lot from writing the blog and getting feedback.

Anyway, I'll try it and see what happens, or if anyone cares. Maybe I'll care in 10 years when I can go back and see what I was thinking and where I went wrong.

After riding around in an Autorickshaw for nearly 1000 miles, I good transition would be to talk about the Tesla, a car that's on the opposite end of the spectrum from a performance and pollution standpoint. When I first learned about the battery pack, I had trouble relating the battery consumption to things I was familiar with, so I did a few calculations that made it more clear to me, at least.

Like all cars, Tesla’s mileage varies by how hard you drive; “normal driving” (ie, the way the EPA measures gas mileage for cars), the Tesla requires 334 watt hours to go a mile. That means that one kilowatt hour will propel the Tesla about 3 miles. Hair dryers are generally 1000 – 1500 watts, so you have a choice: you can dry your hair for an hour, are drive the Tesla for 3-5 miles.

My Dell laptop battery says it stores 43 watt hours. That’s enough energy to move the Tesla about 700 feet, or, if I’m going 60mph, power the engine for about 8.5 seconds.

The Tesla battery pack holds 57 kilowatt hours, so it’s equivalent to about 1300 Dell laptop batteries. Cross checking, that says that we can power the car for 1300*8.5 seconds or 11,200 seconds, or just over 3 hours, for a battery pack life of about 200 miles.

Some other interesting data points: a rechargeable AA battery is rated at about 2000mAh. These rechargeable batteries are typically about 1.3 volts (slightly less than the standard 1.5 volts), for a total capacity of 2.6 watt hours. So about 18 rechargeable AA are equivalent to a Dell laptop battery, which seems about right judging by the relative sizes. And that AA battery will power the Tesla for about .46 seconds (just under ½ second) at 60 mph, moving it about 44.5 feet; it takes about 128 AA batteries to move the Tesla a mile.

Or, in dollar terms:

• Off peak charging is 5 cents/kilowatt hour which is about 3 miles, just under 2 cents per mile for the energy cost. NOTE: the battery cost is additional. The Tesla battery lasts about 100,000 miles and currently costs $25,000 for an additional 25 cents per mile in battery cost.
• AA batteries are about 50 cents, which means it would cost about $60 to go a mile (including battery costs) if you bought your energy at a convenience store.

Kuttalam to Kanyakumari

Check out today's video! Be sure to click the "watch in high quality" link at the bottom right! The final day opens with a sheet full of challenges and Aravind’s briefing “you can not complete them all. Choose wisely.” The instructions are on both sides of the sheet, and quite chaotic even by ARC standards. There is no official flag off or flag down – we are free to leave anytime. Inspired, we decide to end on a high note and resolve to complete all the tasks – just to prove that we can complete them all. We figure out our first destination and are the second team on the road. When we stop to ask directions, we are pointed on our way. Giamp did not trust the directions we were given, so asked again. And then again. Every 100 meters or so. Always the same answer. After the third time I was getting annoyed at stopping all the time but Giamp said he still didn’t trust the directions. Stops four and five confirmed our direction was correct yet again. And again. Our sixth stop was shortly later when the clutch stopped working right next to a giant trash heap and a lot of flies.

When the mechanics show up we find out we are of course, on the wrong road and the clutch repair (2^nd in as many days) would take about 45 minutes. All was not lost because this gave us 45 minutes to decipher the day’s instructions, complete with eight GPS waypoints. But were they accurate? Were the challenges in chronological order? The repair finished just as we completed our driving plan for the day: even with the 45 minute handicap, we’re going to attempt every challenge unless we can’t get to the waterfall by 3:30, in which case we’ll skip the waterfall – the one “must see” item according to Arivind. A classic “see India” vs. “win race” tradeoff, though there is also a “survival” tradeoff as anyone who has driven at night without a headlight on potholed streets can tell you.

As it turns out, the GPS waypoints are accurate but interpreting them is problematic. At one point the road goes left or right, and the next waypoint is 5km to the left. We decide to turn left and in 1km come to a parking lot for a temple. The waypoint does indeed signify a temple, and there is a path going in the correct direction. Just a short 4km hike up the hill?

I decide to run the path for a bit to see if anything makes sense. I run into another team which provides very cryptic answers to my questions about whether there is a temple ahead. Finally, I decide to turn around but a local says: “temple, up around the corner”. OK. I’ll keep running. About ½ km later I finally come to a temple but there is no Shiva. Wrong temple! Giamp is having a field day telling me how useless the GPS, and all technology is. I keep trying to explain the problem is not the technology, but the interpretation of the information, and it is in fact me that is useless. I guess reading the sheet, and asking locals can work better than a GPS.

We take the road the other direction and sure enough, exactly as described, we find the correct temple. Then it’s a question of whether we go up the hill another 18km to get to a dam, or whether we continue. We run into the Hanumaniacs Team and they decide to skip the dam. We decide to go for it. Fortunately, the 18km was exaggerated – it was about 5km more. The directions out are the same as the directions in, and we are surprised by how few teams we encounter. In the 56km round trip, we should pretty much run into every team, but we saw only four. Maybe they all skipped this detour and went straight to the waterfall?

When we have to make our waterfall go-nogo decision, it’s right at 3:30, our cutoff time. We decide to go for it, and are treated to an awesome sight complete with a monkey that tried to hijack our rickshaw when we were at the falls. Two tasks left, and they’re both on the main path, and we are done! It’s beginning to look like a triumphal march into town.

Of course, with 50km to go, and a straight shot to Kanyakumari, our clutch goes again. We break down in a very rural area, and one of the homeowners comes out and invites us in for food and drink. We are too flustered and decide to wait roadside for the mechanics. 45 minutes later, we’re on the road again but it’s getting dark. The mechanics van is following us, and when we pull into a petrol station, they tune up the engine a bit. After that little tune-up, our top speed when from 50km to over 56km. If we ever do this again, I’m going to learn to tune an engine!

We arrive in Kanyakumari about 6:45, just after the 6:30 time when the judges start to calculate the results and the winner. We figure we’re in fine shape since we did all the challenges, and being just 15 minutes late should be well within any reasonable grace period.

At night there is an awards ceremony, complete with radio, newspaper, and TV reporters. Each team gives a 3 minute speech and then the organizers give awards to the top 8 teams. After 7 days, over 1400km, 3 clutches, two tires, a gear box, two muffler repairs, 28 teams from 12 countries, and over 65 participants, we’re proud to say Team Namascar was awarded the hotly contested and highly prized 2007-2008 Indian Autorickshaw Challenge World Championship. WORLD championship. J

Tutticorin to Kuttalam - January 6

Lack of internet coverage means I have not checked the stock market all week. That’s a record for me…and I’m quite curious what has happened on Wall Street. Has the sub-prime battle with inflation crushed the market or is it still bubbling along. I hardly care. We have our daily rickshaw vs. the animal and mechanized kingdom battle as can be seen in today's video.

The morning starts with the “International Pongol Festival” at Aravind’s farm. We’re divided into five teams each of which, with the help of a local family, has to make a batch of Pongol from water, rice, sugar cane, cashews, spices, and a live chicken. As Pongol is a sweet, vegetarian dish, the chicken appears to be there only to lend moral support. We are to be judged on speed and quality, though our primary purpose is to look ridiculous. With the men wearing dhotis, the women wearing Sari’s and the SS Music crew chasing everyone around we make the Indian equivalent of an MTV special.

The recipe starts with making fire to get the water boiling; we’re doing great until the gods take our pot. Water spills everywhere and our fire is out. We elect to focus on quality, and make some darn good Pongol using some “borrowed” ingredients from other teams since we were a bit short due to the hi-jinx with the first batch. After a formal offering to the gods and some cows wearing robes, our Pongol is rated 2^nd by a single point. The winners received two bunches of miniature bananas – we received one bunch. And for anyone who likes cashews, as Giamp does – see yesterday’s video – our Pongol was clearly superior as the winning team didn’t use them.

As all the teams are getting ready to go we discover our rickshaw's clutch is broken. The mechanics are right there, but this is a serious operation. Half-way through we discover the gearbox is broken as well. Arivind’s dad entertains us with coconut drinks and food as the mechanics repair the car. We start about an hour later, but quickly make up time as there are no challenges and it’s now Saturday, so again there is no school visit. As we roll into the hotel in Kuttralam, one of our tires deflates. For a day with two potentially serious problems, they could not have happened at better times. Our secret prayers to Ganesha – the remover of obstacles - are paying huge dividends.

For the adventurous among us, dinner is at a local truck stop and our transportation is the luggage truck. We’re shipped there in the dark container like a bunch of illegals and their cruel coyote. After surviving the fast food restaurant on the way to Rameswaram, we were feeling confident, but here we are taken to a whole new level. As usual, the meal starts with a banana leaf with water splashed on it, but then a fat, greasy, sweating cook comes round with pots of very spicy roasted chickens and quails. He digs around the pots with his bare hands and tosses them onto your banana leaf. Need more squab? No problem, I just happen to have a handful here. There’s no ordering. No asking. No communication whatsoever, probably because you can’t talk over all the noise. Other servers come by with paratha, vegetables, rice, etc. Just food coming at your right and left. The meal ends when you fold your leaf over – then no one can put more on your “plate”. Super efficient, and the food was delicious. The mayhem was a sight to see, as you can do for yourself in today’s video. If someone ran a petrol station like this, they’d be millionaires.

Rameswaram to Tutticorin

UPDATE: All videos now moved to youtube! See today's video!!!

Distance traveled: 196km

Time: 7 hrs, 40 minutes

Our karma was back in full force. Race day 5 brings us another large, full color picture of team Namascar in the paper – pretty much our standard pose: hanging from the rickshaw wearing crazy hats and screaming at the top of our lungs. Are we becoming a media juggernaut? See the video and decide for yourself!

The day started with the most serious briefing yet, telling us about the terrible road (actually non road) and the likelihood that locals, having read about the rally in the paper, would throw dead chickens, goats, or maybe relatives in front of us and try to get money from us for ‘hitting’ them. We were also told that we need to be very careful as the rickshaws could easy break an axle on the road as the potholes were sometimes the size of, well, a rickshaw. To further complicate things, we don’t have cell coverage for most of the day, and the directions are pretty much only suggestions. About 50% of the day was actually spent driving off road, and if you want to know how rickshaws do ‘off roading’ check out our video. Again no tasks other than to visit the village and arrive on time which was particularly important as there would be a bus waiting in Tutticorin that would leave at 3:45 sharp. If you arrived at 3:46, no bus, no beach trip – you were out of luck. NO EXCEPTIONS. Naturally when we arrive at 4 pm, we’re the second team in and the pace car and spice music boys are still behind. We’re on hardcore mañana S. Indian time. Needless to say, the beach trip never materializes.

The school visit was a let down as school was not in session. No one on our team had any idea what day it was, but after some calculations we figured out it’s Friday, a Hindu weekend day; school is in session Sunday – Thursday. When we got to Tutticorin we asked directions to our hotel, and cause a minor traffic back up when a whole host of well wishers gave us helpful directions. One chap shows us the way, and offers to show us around town for the evening but we tell him we were attending a dinner hosted by the Freemasons. Alarmed, he hushes us and gives us some free advice we didn’t comprehend: In Tutticorin don’t mention “Freemason” out loud. Uh, OK. Fortunately, compliance is easy.

Tutticorin is Indian ARC organizer Aravind’s home town. Rather than the beach trip, the evening featured a great party with special guests, the Dean of the University in Tutticorin and Aravind’s dad. The food and drink were great, the speeches funny, and it’s good to get a glimpse of Aravind’s personal life and attachment to this place. We run out of beer very early and are treated to a Tutticorin gentlemen’s discussion about the dangers of drinking beer in winter, and its effect on joints, bladder, and the performance of masculine heroics. Mind you winter is 90 degrees and 90 percent humidity here. Thankfully, there is plenty of “White Mischief” – a brand of vodka - on hand and the party rolls on into the night.

Be sure to check the video!

Madurai to Rameswaram (hump day!) - January 4th

There are no tasks for today other than to arrive on time and visit the village, so we visit the Sri Minakshee temple in the morning. If a challenge had been “find a place to park within 1km of the temple”, I doubt anyone would have scored points. In the US, some fancy restaurants will supply a coat and tie if you aren’t wearing one. In this temple, one of the most famous in India and one of the only places where rituals from an ancient civilization are still practiced, the dress code for men is: bare feet and long pants. Giamp was wearing shorts and he was required to buy a dhoti, though it looked like a skirt to me. Orange is definitely his color as shown in today's video. On the way out we picked up pencils, jump ropes, and toy cars for the school visit.

We also discover our most important piece of equipment, the horn, is broken.This is no joke. Proactive use of the horn is a must when driving in India. It basically tells others “move left” – it’s used to signal passing, and it clears bikes, pedestrians, dogs and goats. Cows do not listen to the horn, or don’t know what left is. I offer to buy the air horn from a rickshaw taxi, but he wants 600 rupees (over $12) which was outrageous, but certainly reflects the value of the horn. Instead we buy a bike horn and whistles – combined with our hats we look and sound like a circus. It’s not very effective but the freak factor is great.

Once we were on the road, we encountered a new variable: rain. There are four windshield wiper configurations on a rickshaw: manual (a lever you manually move back and forth), motorized (where a small motor automatically turns the wiper for you), manual motor (where the motor is broken but the screws have been removed, so you can move the wiper by manually turning the motor) or “hole” (you have a small hole where the wiper goes). Sadly, we have the motorized configuration which ties for second with “hole” and is far inferior to either of the manual options. Our windshield is a mess, rain is coming into both sides of the rickshaw, and as we turn the corner less than 1km outside Madurai, we see a very large truck on its side in the river with a somewhat smaller than normal Indian throng looking on. Clearly, this truck had just gone into the water and the vehicle (another truck) it had collided with was pulled over as well. We stopped to check it out - miraculously everyone was alright. Last night we were able to settle two fender benders for 200 rupees – I’m curious what this one cost.

Fortunately, the rain was short lived. To make sure we don’t have a repeat of yesterdays sub par finish, we calculate the distance and our average speed, and make sure we have plenty of room to spare before flag down, or at least sundown. Our rickshaw has a top speed of 50km/hr on the flat (we’ve hit 55 on a hill, and can’t break 40 when there is a headwind), but with the various obstacles along the way, averaging 30km/hr is about right for planning purposes. GPS and map in hand, we calculate and recalculate our arrival time based on various worst case and likely case assumptions about every 30 minutes. Things are on plan!

Our intel said there were 50 kids at the Mandapam Ooratchi Thodakapalli school in Saiaivalasai village, but when we arrived there were only 24, with 6 “absent”. We don’t know if that means they were sick (seems like a lot of kids to have sick), whether they were on vacation, working, or just playing hooky. Probably they were helping harvest crops since the roads are covered by corn and other crops farmers put there so that the passing cars with thresh them. The kids were by far the best disciplined class of all we have encountered so far and they were thrilled and super thankful for the items we brought.

Our planning paid off and we arrived at the Hare Krishna Hotel on schedule and in the light, so to speak. We even stop at a “fast food” restaurant in the middle of nowhere along the way. The meal starts with a banana leaf and they dribble water on it. Didn’t the EWG say something about not drinking the water? Then they pile rice and various vegetable mixtures on top. You use the utensil’s you brought with you – be sure to wash them before and after the meal! We were about 70% sure we were about to encounter our mysterious companion dysentery.

We had enough time to spare to visit Adam’s bridge which is the furthest eastern point in Tamil Nadu. We asked for directions and when “Adams Bridge” did not register, we weren’t sure what to call the tip of the peninsula. Finally we asked “Which way to Sri Lanka?” and were given some “pointers” along with the cryptic statement “no look Sri Lanka”. We couldn’t figure out whether this meant “you can’t see Sri Lanka” or whether it was a political statement referring to the Tamil Sri Lanka conflict.

The sandy peninsula was a few hundred yards wide but stretched for many kilometers. We went as far as the road would let us, bought some coconuts at the fishing village there, and watched the sunset as the locals played with our GPS and cameras. There were a few hundred people who lived in that village and judging by their attitude and smiles, they had it figured out. They live in one of the most beautiful spots in the world (as you can see in today’s video), eat fresh fish, drink coconut juice, and tourists come by with strange gadgets to entertain them. That said, I’d hate to be out there during a storm.

Thanjavur to Madurai

Check out today's video!

We leave Thanjavur to a noisy riotous musical send off which was cool! We’ve got GPS points, we’ve done our research, and we’ve only got a couple of challenges. The ride is relatively short, so we’re sure we’ve got it nailed. It’s a beautiful rural ride, on pretty decent roads, and we relax and enjoy the day. The school is in a nice spot surrounded by cleaner, more organized homes. We spend a lot of time with the kids – they love for us to take their picture or video them, and then watch themselves on camera. There’s a lull and loss of urgency since it seems like we have lots of time and a relatively short ride. WRONG. When we leave the school, we take a wrong turn and end up having to back track on rural roads. When we get back onto the road, it’s a shock that we still have so much to cover. It’s going to be uphill. Still, every time we take a wrong turn something great ends up happening. I’m wearing the jester hat (as seen in the Hindu!) and when we ask for directions, we're mobbed by kids.

As if Indian roads are not insane enough, we keep passing stretches where our lane is blocked off by rocks and covered by some weird substance. As we pass more and more, we figure out it’s corn and that the farmers are putting it on the road to dry. It’s strange how it’s a perfectly acceptable use of the flat hot surface. We’re rushing to Madurai for the ‘High Tea’ at the Elements Hostel, and do an express stop at a Fort for one of the day’s challenges. It’s basically a giant boulder with and incredible view of the surrounding countryside.

When we get in to Madurai…it’s a much bigger, more chaotic, and more confusing city than we expected. There’s a hairy moment when I bump a motorcyclist while trying to avoid a bus, and we’re afraid of the mob justice that materializes out of nowhere in a heart beat. We quickly smile and well wish our motorcyclist friend who is unscathed and beat a hasty retreat. Playing dumb and smiling a lot works great. I probably shouldn’t have wished the guy “Happy New Year”, but between that, the jester hat, our crazy looking rickshaw seems to make everyone smile and probably gave him as good a story as we have.

Frazzled, we pay a rickshaw driver to show us to the Elements Hostel. It’s a total waste of time since there’s no press conference and the “high tea’ consists of chai in Dixie cups and some Ritz crackers. We’re instructed to wait as maybe the tea and china will show up, but when it starts to get dark, the group heads out together for the 15 minute ride to the Germanus Hotel, map in hand, with instructions to stick together. What could possibly go wrong?

The map is a wonderfully drawn stick figure that actually has some road names on it - up until the point where there is a long line and a left turn. At that point there are no more labels, and you certainly can’t tell if you have gone too far. Within ten minutes we don’t see any of the other “caravaning Rickshaws” in front or behind us, but we’re confident we’re on the long line, and simply need to make the left and we are there. After a few kilometers we ask for directions. A small, confident throng informs us we are going the wrong way and need to go back and make a right. Ah, we must have simply overshot! Wrong.

We get misdirected four separate times in horrible traffic, and the situation goes from bad to worse when we hit another rickshaw. The driver is angry, but it’s the crowd that’s forming that is more worrying. We quickly jump out and express our regrets and start offering to pay on the spot. 200 rupees later (about $5), we’re in the rickshaw and heading to the hotel, following another taxi rickshaw. It’s a terrible end to an underwhelming day. When we get to Madurai, we tuck into the beers, and set a few things straight. We are going to try to win this thing, and while we’re not willing to cut things out of our schedule and just rush past India, we don’t need to go wasting time when it’s not necessary. We also resolve to really make a complete and finished video instead of just home movies. We have a late dinner with organizers Aravind and Marika, complete with several power outages, on the roof top deck; we are amazed at their no-holds-barred approach to ordering the staff around. I guess trying to organize any logistics in South India will convince you of the necessity to crack the whip.

Don't forget the video, and if you love it, give it 5 stars! If you don't, let me know and we'll do better on the next one!

Pondicherry to Thanjavur - January 2nd

Potholes...Potholes plus Trucks. Buses. Goats. Bicycles. Oxen. Cows. Children. Carts. School girls and Cars.

Today's video rocks! Be sure to rate it!!!!

When we arrive for breakfast, we are greeted with “have you seen the paper”? Having been up most of the night working on videos, GPS, blogs, and fighting with blogspot.com which simply stopped working, no, we had not yet read the Hindu paper. Fortunately, reading was not necessary since we had a full-color picture of us on page two.

Everybody starts the day with enthusiasm - but they don't end it that way. The day starts with a briefing "Today you will meet the Indian Trucker. Some of the finest drivers in the world."

The ride from Pondicherry to Thanjavur starts with a fairly easy jaunt out to Silver Beach to check off our first task. Everyone is racing and having a good time. We pass the recent aftermath of a bus vs. motorcycle accident where the bus lost it's front windshield. It's in the other lane and we fly by. Minor compared to the Podicherry evening mayhem. By the end of the day, there will have been a serious crash and rickshaw totaled - end of the road for Darjeeling Unlimited. Organizers Aravind and Marika skid off into a pond and both are hurt. The bunny rabbit breaks a leg and doesn't make it back - fortunately the team is not hurt. Wheels fall off, brakes fail for the Hungarians, clutch cables for the Americans; a caravan of Canadians limps in at 9:30. The Shark hits a motorcyclist. In the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, about half of the cars finish each year. The ARC is at par.

We on the other hand, have had a perfect day. The Three Wheel Tamil is buzzing along, our GPS work and map research has paid off huge, plus we've had a bit of luck. We're in or near the lead most of the day and even the Indian team is following us down country roads to the school we visit today. In the end, we're second in and one of only three teams to make the cut off. For the rest, it's harrowing stuff, and sad to see how tired they are, and the danger they've had.

The roads here are dominated by a single rule - Momentum. Velocity times weight gives you your rating. The Bus is king: It observes no rules and drives wherever the hell it wants, angrily honking at you and flashing its lights if you dare to take up a small part of your own lane when it commandeers from the opposite direction. Next we have the Ambassador automobile...sweeping past on diplomatic immunity. The Ambassador’s are always in white, and their peer, the jeep, in silver. It’s like a video game from the 80s where all the aliens were the same shape and color, though here they vary greatly by the number of people, or animals, in/on the vehicle. Motorcyles and autorickshaws buzz past on all sides and at all times. We fight it out with them as equals and I'm happy to say, we do most of the passing. Cows have special status, and we are deathly afraid of the repercussions if we hit one. More than one person has told us that if we have the choice of hitting a person or hitting a cow - it's sorry pal, but see you in the next life.

The Ambassador

When I see a video on Youtube I often wonder whether that's one-of-a-kind or a representation. Skateboarding dogs, singers on treadmills, Pepsi and Mentos - clearly singularities. The "traffic in India" video could be a traffic cam.

When we roll in, it's 5 o'clock- still light - and all is well with the world. We are greeted on the door by staff who offer us a blessing, oil anointing, a moist face towel, necklace and mango drink. Every day should be like this.

Something tells me it won't.

At night, all night, it's off to edit video, write blogs, do research, and get ready for the next day. We’re on a mission, and my chronic insomnia has infected Giamp. See today's video!

Day Off

After the free open bar and yesterday's night drive, the day off is pretty welcome. We've got a day under our belts and a day to take it in and make adjustments. We realize that we are at a distinct disadvantage when we see the Indian teams driving around as if they can read the road signs or something. We decide that we must do something about it. Hello internet and a formidable arsenal of technological weaponry. We spent half the day checking out the bazaar and beach front, and the other half doing a PhD on the road ahead, complete with waypoints entered into the GPS and checking directions and maps against satellite images from Google Earth.

Indian ARC Chennai to Pondicherry December 31, 2007

Insane! Absolutely Insane! The race begins and day one is not, as the laws of man suggest, 24 hours, but more like 2 weeks in some manic, mind boggling Indian amusement park. Sanity is relative: watch the video and decide for yourself.

There is mayhem, beauty, terror, misdirection; sheer cluelessness – and always the shining, pure smile of South India . Everywhere we go, we are met by the incredible smiles that light up out of nowhere and make you feel welcome, happy, and in love with this part of the world.

In the morning, we flag off by driving over a lemon for good luck. Blasting off in pole position we take the early lead. Trouble is we have no clue where the hell we are going and we have less than a liter of gas to get there.

It’s a straight plunge into chaotic, packed, buzzing streets. Where the hell are we supposed to go? All we know is that we are heading South and our tasks are a grab bag of scavenger hunt type clues.

First we hit the petrol station for gas and oil mixture. It’s a magical concoction of 1 litre petrol to 150 ml of oil. Trouble is no one wants to mix it that way. And people have theological discussions about the right mix. Like many things in India , you encounter magnitudes of difference in the same breath. Is it 2ml or 200? We’ve been told both, and many points in between. Of course, the autorickshaw ran best later in the day when we bought mystery orange gas – mixture unknown - from a soda vendor at a roadside stand when we were about to run out. This gas(?) improved our top speed from 40km/hr to over 50.

Task one: find out what is the three-in-one sculpture in Krishnam Mandapam? This question alone gave us a detour of over 30 km as we tracked and backtracked following the directions of locals which mysteriously always put our goal 2 km away and invariably ended in a pot holed, this-can’t-be-it dirt road though the final deception was a security guard who said “Yes – this way. Krishnam Mandapam.” Needless to say, it was not the right spot.

We’re feeling great. The road is good, the countryside opens up and there are glimpses of ocean, rice paddies, ox carts, and forest. We try to ignore the trash that litters all of it. When we reach Mamalapuram, we’re feeling so good we blow right past the turn off. Luckily there are other autorickshaw racers there so we back track and head into town to visit the huge temple complex, which is a World Heritage Site. Incredibly, we failed to grasp that one of the most important sites in south India in fact contains the Krishnam Mandapam in Mamallapuram. Oh well, we’re just learning. It’s all looking up from here, because we learn what the three-in-one statue is and manage to plant some misinformation to the other teams, who come away thinking it has to do with rocks, and carvings, or some such thing.

It’s actually a small pillar among many in which the sculpture shows an elephant, a cow, or baby elephant, depending on what part you cover up. BONUS points for Team Namascar. We don’t think anyone else got this one right.

After a bit of misdirection it's back to the main road and a visit to a school where we hand off our charity to the teachers at a little road side school. The kids are well behaved and love the pens, cards, and other school supplies we hand out to them. We are on our way to find a mysterious ruined Dutch fort so that we can find out what is inscribed on the tomb. Some quick research tells us that the fort is in the town of Sadras which it seems we alone find. It's another dusty, town, and again miraculously whenever we ask, we keep getting sent further and further along 2 km at a time.

Still everything is going great until somewhere along the way we lose our "silencer", an exaggeration for the term muffler, and end up waking the dead with our super loud rickshaw that now sounds like an airplane. There are plenty of (annoyed) people who let us know. We tell them, we just have to do one thing before we head back. As we pass back through town, a kid jumps into the middle of the street, holding our silencer - where the hell did he find it? He hops in with us and it's off to the welder. As with everything we do it takes a crowd of 25 people - it really does take a village.

Back on the road, we know we are not going to make the 5:30 cut off, and that we'll be driving by night. A daunting task, particularly with the single headlight that shines no brighter than a flashlight. Still we are in great spirits and the team is determined to scoop up as many points as possible whatever time we get in. There's no quit in us. Off to the ruined Allambarai Fort where we end up in triumphal parade of 20 kids hanging off our rickshaw and singing with us.

The ride into Pondicherry is sheer madness and involves at least two legitimate potentially life altering experiences (aka fatal crashes). And, the silencer falls off again 1 km from goal. With the muffler off and us screaming, we drive up to the 5-star hotel 13th of 26 teams at 7:30, 1:30 after sunset. The race is scored on points which are attained by completing the tasks. After talking to a number of people, we're hopeful our late arrival is more than made up for by our success at the tasks.

The India EWG has some helpful rules of the road. Two of my favorites: do not pick up hitchhikers and do not drive at night. In the space of 10 minutes we joyfully and enthusiastically break both rules. Watch carefully and see if you can spot us bending these rules in today’s video!

Addenda - The New Years Eve Party
At the hotel, they've organized a splashy and swank party which includes a huge feast and all the booze you can drink. Something the exuberant Tamil guys embrace wholeheartedly. It is only the first of many 'embraces' of the evening. Everywhere we turn there are smiling faces, and 'wish you a happy new year' greetings. Everyone wants to shake hands, hug, and make friends. It's probably the most endearing thing here, and it's the first time we've taken an invitation of 'you come and dance with me' from a guy so gladly. You can go into a shop for a shirt and though the guy doesn't have what you want, and you've concluded business transactions, he still wants to give you a hug. Take a picture with someone, and they'll hold your hand and beam into the camera. If you looked at the Gross National Happiness Index in this part of the world, it would be through the roof!

Indian ARC Rickshaw Driving Training Day

Here is a video covering our travel and our training.

We had one goal today: learning to drive our autorickshaw. By “our” I mean that we each team has its own AR pimped out to our specs. We are team Namascar (we put the NASCAR into Namaskar – a Hindu greeting).

The day went, in what appears by both experiential and other accounts, to have gone in typical Indian fashion. Some ARs were there and in great working order, some worked partially, and some were no shows. The autorickshaw in the form of a plush muppet furred rabbit was fantastic. We fared a bit worse than most – our AR, dubbed the 3 Wheel Tamil looked great but the engine kept quitting in different ways: One all out seizure where the wheels locked up and we came to a skidding halt. Twice it sputtered and then stopped. And finally it just quit. “Towing” the AR consisted of someone driving behind it in another AR and pushing it with one foot. This technique seemed to be pretty well known. Our AR didn’t have a back window, and of the three front windows, only one was even partially transparent. And the musical horn we spent extra money on didn’t work. Details, we don’t need to see where we’re going. We were assured these issues would all be fixed by tomorrow morning by flag-off. Let it be god’s will.

We are being shadowed by SS TV. Southern Spice – a kind of Tamil MTV so we’ll have lot’s of other footage too. Our intense training period consisted of about 2 minutes of here’s the gears, here’s the brake. In honesty, it’s like driving a go cart, so we don’t anticipate any problems…except for tipping, which on a 3 wheeled contraption is surprisingly easy to do. Our first day takes us from Chennai to Pondicherry, between 120 and 150km by different accounts. Like all things here, it’s a very ‘fluid’ situation. We have absolutely no clue what to expect. Really. None.

Other details:

• We have a team of mechanics following us during the “challenge” (it’s not a race).
• The event is billed as “emissions neutral” since the sponsors purchased trees to cover our CO2 emissions.
• The engines are 2-stroke, and produce a lot of smoke. Covering that part of the emissions was not discussed.
• Some form of religious music starts every morning at 5AM and is VERY loud