Friday, February 27, 2009
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Get mesmerised
Lina A. Mroz, of Baltimore, Md., walks through "Roba Vecchia", a kaleidoscope installation by Lara Baladi, that is part of the festival, "Arabesque: Arts of the Arab World" at the Kennedy Center in Washington.
A Moulin Rouge dancer poses for a photo during a media event in Rio de Janeiro. Dancers from the famed Paris dancehall, Moulin Rouge, will take part in the Grande Rio samba school parade. (AP Photo / February 20, 2009)
Horseback riders patrol the beach at sunset ahead of the Enduropale race featuring more than 1,000 motorbikes in The 4th Enduropale du Touquet 2009 at Le Touquet Beach in Le Touquet, France. (Getty Images Photo / February 23, 2009)
Following a century-old custom during Mardi Gras, Bavarian celebrants participate in the traditional cow-bell ringing procession at Mittenwald, in south Germany, defying subzero temperatures. Their festive garb includes wooden masks and cow bells strapped around their waists. (AP Photo / February 19, 2009)
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Class participation
There is this concept of class participation - meaning you have to speak in class and give a valid point in the context of the discussion of the case at that point of time to take the discussion ahead or to a better level.
Now, that was the ideal definition. Practically, a lot of our grades depend on it. One can fail if he doesn't do enough CP(Class participation).
There were these couple of instances today in the two classes and another instance in another class yesterday which hit me and made me think. The common point in all these 3 instances was the initial words "diversify the risk". After saying these sacred words, they explained their point further. This was their CP.
Another instance today was when a guy in the class almost brought about an unrelated concept and said the words "they should differentiate their products and innovate".
Based on all these sacrosanct CPs, I propose a basic framework for CPs:
If the question is specific and about what a company should do, then say "Innovate and differentiate the products/services". If the topic is more general, then the consecrated words "Diversification" should work.
If it something you have absolutely no idea about, then the absolute magic words of the genius should be used, which is "It depends".
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Mini -> Micro
I am too sexy for my ports Too sexy for my ports So sexy I will replace my ports
Some good for the customers of mobile phones. Soon, in a couple of years, the micro-USB port is going to be the universal format of the mobile charger. So all the new mobile phones from 2012 of various companies can use the same charger. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News_by_Industry/Soon_one_charger_for_mobiles/articleshow/4146189.cms
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Oddest of odd news
1. Two highly advanced operational nuclear submarines, one of the UK and the other French, collide physically in the Atlantic Ocean while on missions.
2. Taliban has called the pro-pakistani militants who are not ready to fight the Pakistan military as their enemies and hence the attackers become the attacked now.
3. Japan's FM to resign after being drunk at G7 meeting.
What is the probability of having such strange news all together...
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
A new way to live
For the last 2 weeks, I have trying to live a kind of daily life that you may think is insane, but I don't think so. A lot of words have lost their meaning in my world. I no longer have words called breakfast, lunch, dinner and morning coffee in my dictionary. I have replaced this with meals (even numbering these meals is difficult, it depends on the reference time you take). This is my new, flexible and disciplined schedule which I have been practicing: Come back from classes and sleep from 4pm to 8pm or 6pm to 11pm or so with the traditional dinner parcelled for eating later when I get up. I get up have a cup of tea/coffee and have my parcelled meal at 1am/2am. Spend time after getting up catching up on email, talking with home/friends and studying for the next day classes. At around 5 or 6am, go to bed again to catch a mid night nap of around 2 hrs. Get up again at 7am or 8am(depending on classes), get ready and go to classes. This may come as a shock to you about this kind of a schedule, but I think this has allowed me to discipline myself better and find more peacful time for studying/browsing in the night. In my terms, discipline is not about getting up at 6 am daily and sleeping at 11pm. Discipline is all about doing a thing regularly and at a particular time you decide.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Radical evolution
It is said that evolution occurs slowly over hundreds of years. But I think evolution is occurring very fast in bouts. Evolution of the mankind, the societies and the organizations. First of all, where am I coming from? Having read "God's Debris" by Scott Adams sometime last year, I somehow believe what he envisages in his book. He says somewhere that as a cell in a body does not know the existence and the effect it has on the organism, similarly, the humans in the planet don't know the existence and the effect they can have on the planet. He goes on to tell that all the humans (equivalent to cells) will form a network and be able to direct the course of earthkind that will shape the planet (equivalent to organism) which in turn will shape the universe. We can see this formation of networks in the form of the internet and how it is changing the way people think, organise, form thought and take action. In the book "Year million"
(http://www.amazon.com/Year-Million-Science-Edge-Knowledge/dp/1934633054/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213445875&sr=8-1),
one of the author says about the future of humans as "a gigantic system of solar-orbiting structures to trap the sun's energy". Dougal Dixon speculates on continental drift and changes in the Earth's magnetic field. From such sources of ideas, I optimistically think that the humankind will evolve into something like this, rather than pessimestically saying that they will die maybe in a few thousand years. If that is the supposed vision of the human kind, then I think and also see the next change in the society and the organisations that will enable us to go to this vision. In the past, we have seen socialism where the government controls everything, today, we see capitalism and free markets, and I stick my neck out today to say that the future will see the very people in the society control everything. By this I mean that the people of the society will not elect leaders the way it is done now. Relevant people who consider that they should contribute for something will directly take part in that activity and contribute. People will hate organisations that make profit. People will kill the organisations that make profit by making them untenable. People will contribute to things they want to and they do it for free. Everything will be user generated and what initially is for profit will turn to non-profit and for the betterment of the society. This will make profit making organisations bleed to death. The word competition will not exist. Even today, with all the price wars and ever lower transaction costs, every organisation is finding itself in a harder position to survive everyday. Today, with the credit crisis, people are angry and are loathing people who make a lot of money, and who because of their greed brought everybody's world down. In the coming decades, more such crisis will be blamed on greedy people and a general thinking of "for non-profit" and "for betterment of society" will come. The "for profit" people will become outlaws and will be forced to live secretly away from the society. The only rule of economics that will stay is the definition of economics "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." The human behaviour will change, today's economic rules of demand and supply will not exist as the concept of price will disappear. In the past, there was one currecny: gold. Then there were hundreds of currencies. Then in 1990's a lot of countries joined together to form the Euro. There was a similar idea for Asia too. Today, the pound has crashed against the dollar. Britain would like to rethink the concept of joining the Euro(They would then have not lost out so much value). Cloud computing is in. The concept of storing everything you want in a third party system is in (Google's Picasa, gmail and G drive). All the data in the world is getting collected centrally. The point I am making is that we are in a phase of human evolution and transition where things are changing very rapidly and simultaneously. Things have got so worse being split that things are again getting together but in a much different way than before. This time unitedness is in the form of networks that are distributive and have the power to take on more faults without the whole system going down. This is the way I see it. The readers are free to agree or disagree to whatever I have said. This is just my hypothesis which cannot be proved. Only time will tell...
(http://www.amazon.com/Year-Million-Science-Edge-Knowledge/dp/1934633054/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213445875&sr=8-1),
one of the author says about the future of humans as "a gigantic system of solar-orbiting structures to trap the sun's energy". Dougal Dixon speculates on continental drift and changes in the Earth's magnetic field. From such sources of ideas, I optimistically think that the humankind will evolve into something like this, rather than pessimestically saying that they will die maybe in a few thousand years. If that is the supposed vision of the human kind, then I think and also see the next change in the society and the organisations that will enable us to go to this vision. In the past, we have seen socialism where the government controls everything, today, we see capitalism and free markets, and I stick my neck out today to say that the future will see the very people in the society control everything. By this I mean that the people of the society will not elect leaders the way it is done now. Relevant people who consider that they should contribute for something will directly take part in that activity and contribute. People will hate organisations that make profit. People will kill the organisations that make profit by making them untenable. People will contribute to things they want to and they do it for free. Everything will be user generated and what initially is for profit will turn to non-profit and for the betterment of the society. This will make profit making organisations bleed to death. The word competition will not exist. Even today, with all the price wars and ever lower transaction costs, every organisation is finding itself in a harder position to survive everyday. Today, with the credit crisis, people are angry and are loathing people who make a lot of money, and who because of their greed brought everybody's world down. In the coming decades, more such crisis will be blamed on greedy people and a general thinking of "for non-profit" and "for betterment of society" will come. The "for profit" people will become outlaws and will be forced to live secretly away from the society. The only rule of economics that will stay is the definition of economics "the science which studies human behaviour as a relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses." The human behaviour will change, today's economic rules of demand and supply will not exist as the concept of price will disappear. In the past, there was one currecny: gold. Then there were hundreds of currencies. Then in 1990's a lot of countries joined together to form the Euro. There was a similar idea for Asia too. Today, the pound has crashed against the dollar. Britain would like to rethink the concept of joining the Euro(They would then have not lost out so much value). Cloud computing is in. The concept of storing everything you want in a third party system is in (Google's Picasa, gmail and G drive). All the data in the world is getting collected centrally. The point I am making is that we are in a phase of human evolution and transition where things are changing very rapidly and simultaneously. Things have got so worse being split that things are again getting together but in a much different way than before. This time unitedness is in the form of networks that are distributive and have the power to take on more faults without the whole system going down. This is the way I see it. The readers are free to agree or disagree to whatever I have said. This is just my hypothesis which cannot be proved. Only time will tell...
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
Wow!
A phenomenon known as "light pillars" spreads across the night sky over Victor, Idaho. The colorful columns form when light from the ground reflects off flat snow crystals descending through very cold air.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Tough guy challenge
A competitor runs through fire during the Tough Guy Challenge 2009 at South Perton Farm in Wolverhampton, England. The biannual event to raise cash for charity challenges thousands of international competitors to run through a gruelling set of 21 obstacles including water, fire and tunnels after a lengthy run at the start.
Falling in love
Read somewhere in the blogosphere:
"Its not the pretty face which makes you fall in love, it's the small quirks and annoyances that endears the person to you."
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
The formative years
I have wondered as to at what age period does a person learn the values and principles that they believe in for their lives. There obviously will not be only a single time period as all people learn throughout their lives and the events around them shape or add new values and principles. But what is the most important time period, the most essential time period?
I was not sure for a long time, but when I met my school friends this time in Bangalore and as we discussed a lot of stuff, I realised that almost all of us share similar values and principles. I studied with these people during my 7th, 8th and a couple of months of 9th standard before I went to another school.
There are so many similarities among us even today. Starting from: none of us have a girlfriend/boyfriend to we all loved the school times. We all still meet after a decade or so whenever it is possible. We don't have a lot of day to day things to talk about, yet we meet. Most of us have lived outside our home and have gone through some of the life's hurdles. We all value our old friendships a lot. We all respect some of our teachers who taught us. If we were to need help, we wouldn't mind asking each other. The strange part is that we all have our own set of problems, but we usually don't talk about it in the group, but only with the one or two closest of friends during the school days. We all would love to go out in a trip sometime together, but as of now that seems remote.
Coming back to the topic, I think the age of realising, imbibing values and standing for principles starts when a person goes through some tough times and is forced to make a hard decision or forced to do something against one's wishes or when someone who you respect a lot says something, and you totally accept it.
I am not sure which of these it is for my schoolmates, but for me personally, the challenges came and I was able to realise the values and stand for principles during the times I was with these schoolmates of mine.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
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