For distracted people

Guess what? There is a global association for distracted people. Check out the board members of this association: The board: chairman: Johan Rapp, one of the founders. He realized the need for an association when, one day, he arrived at work with two bags of garbage in his hands. He had forgotten to dispose of them at home. member: Sven-Erik Fernaeus, neuro-psychologist. He wants to research about the distracted and has come to realize that he himself is very distracted. member: Julia Marshall, from New Zealand. Radiates positive energy with intense and alert eyes and is as charmingly distracted as her hair is red and curly. member: Åke Malm. A Swedish engineer. He can appear very orderly, but those who know him can see that he is seriously distracted. member: Art Max, humorous and somewhat distracted head of the Associated Press in Holland. On a more serious note, there are some really nice and innovative things designed for these people.

Tip of the iceberg

"For every day a legionary wields a sword, went the saying, he spends a dozen wielding a shovel."

Marital insurance

Here is a nice article which will potentially busts the husbands who have been doing auto-delivery of flowers as part of their secret marital insurance policy.
http://financialrounds.blogspot.com/2009/04/marital-insurance.html

Carbon E7

If this baby doesn't turn you on....

little else will in this world! This is a police concept car E7. Check out the options here: It is never ending and just wow! http://www.carbonmotors.com/take-action/preorder
To see and reads more go to:

http://jalopnik.com/5223836/carbon-motors-e7-nypd-cool#viewcomments

Knocked out but not out

Been hit hard, hit very hard, so hard that I was totally knocked out, no idea of who I was, where I was, until I gained my consciousness hours later. Never expected this fight to be so fierce, thought I had won the fight, until it hit me so hard today. I shouldn't have teased it, shouldn't have provocated it, and at least shouldn't have ignored it, but then it wouldn't have hit me so hard. Nobody was there when I was out cold, nobody called for me, nobody came to me, when it hit me so hard. But now, as it dawns on me, the prolonged fights are very strenuous, tiring and dangerous, its effects can last more than a day or two, and the body needs a lot of rest to cope up with the fights. Not much damage done, no permanent scars, just a few vital lessons to be learnt, and I have to be on my toes for the next round of fighting.

Conscience

Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good.

Best action movies

So what makes a good action movie? What is almost a necessity if an action movie is supposed to be great? One aspect that is common in all the best action movies is this: A unique innovative way to kill the villain. Let me go through the ones on top of mind:
Troy: Brad Pitt kills the gaint in the first fight sequence with a sprint, a jump, a deep penetration of the sword from the clavicle bone of the giant to his heart. The giant collapses immediately. Commando: Arnie kills the villian with the steam duct with steam passing through his stomach, actually cooking his internal organs.
Air force1: Harrison Ford kicks the villian of the Air Force1 with the statement "Get out of my plane" True Lies: Arnie literally fires off the villain stuck on the missile of the Harrier jet saying "You are fired"
Fast and furious 4 - New model : The last scene of the villian getting rammed in the torso by the car driven by Vin Diesel with its front wheels up due to the enormous torque the car produces. Terminator2: Arnie finishes off the mercury man with a shot gun shot and the classic words "Astalavista Baby"
Rambo1: His unique and crude method of hurting the people behind him with big logs falling and sharp wood pieces entering into the thighs of the people was awesome. Imagine all the things a dagger could do.
Men in Black: The big cockroach spaltters because of a weapon fired from within its belly.
Top Gun: Tom Cruise uses a special tactic to basically stop the plane mid-air and makes the hunter become the hunted by falling back due to lesser air speed.
Eraser: The villians are seated in a limosuisinne which gets purposely parked on the rail tracks and the doors shut. A train comes and hits the car and the baddies are killed. The dialogue goes on later: "how are they?" Pat comes the reply "They caught a train"
Face off: The villian dies not just by stabbing , but stabbing and then turning the knife around to see to it that the damage is irrepairable and inflicts more pain.
Sin city: One of the most innovative and disgusting methods to kill has been invented in this movie. The ever silent Kevin's limbs are cut off and fed to his very own ferocious dog. Then the stationary rest of him is tied to a tree for the dog to finish off while he is still alive.
Broken Arrow: As the train stops suddenly, the nuclear missile hits and penetrates Nicholas Cage killing him.
Speed: Keanu Reeves manages to stay on the train and pushing the lunatic bomber's head to the signal in the sub way ripping off his head. Waiting to see more new ways to kill the baddies....

Capital loss

One of the forms of private property that people cherish most is their ideas. If you convince them that their ideas are wrong, you have caused them to suffer a capital loss - Friedrich Hayek.

Pirates of Somalia

I recently read about a ship being hijacked by the Somalian pirates. The description of the ship caught my eye. "Greece's Merchant Marine Ministry said the the ship flying a Greece flag named Irene E.M. had 22 Filipino crew . The bulk carrier was sailing from Jordan to India. Its Piraeus-based owners were not immediately available for comment." 5 different nationalities are mentioned here: Greece flagged ship, crew members country, traveling from a 3rd country to the 4th and the owners are from a fifth country altogether. Surely it would have been made in a 6th country with a jpint venture with a company of the 7th country. (Not to mention the outsourcing of manufacturing and design in another country) How more globalised can a ship get?

Doga

Well, this comes as a surprise to me. After clothing up dogs, scenting them up, now there is even yoga for dogs. It is called "Doga". Check the below link fro more details:
http://www.expertvillage.com/video-series/843_doga-yoga-with-dog.htm
Now, this brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "doing it doggie style"!!!

Been there done that!

There are two common starting problems with new things to be done. In one case, people are so scared of the task that they wont start the work at all. First, they will ignore the task as long as possible, though it will be eating them up in the back of the mind. When they can no longer take it, or see that the deadline is approaching, they start talking about the task to others which will not help them get to them doing the job though. Finally, panic sets in. Now, there is no place for rationality. Anything goes, beg someone who knows it to do it, or with some moral support from others end up with some really shoddy job (If you are able to understand the work in the first place and know that it is shoddy). Now, the other extreme. The person starts off with the work with not an idea of what is expected as the output. He doesnt know what is he graded on, how important the task is and how much is the reasonable time required to do the task. They start off like an engine which is turned on and keeps running with no purpose till the fuel in the tank gets emptied. There are in square 1 always, initially on a high that they are progressing on the task and then disgusted with whatever they have done. The solution is the middle ground. Always start off with what is the required output of the task, what will it be measured on and then decide on the importance of the task not only to you, but also others. The next step is to estimate the time required to do/get the job done. Have checkpoints and then start the task.

Judging

"Always judge, but don't be judgmental."

Practice

“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”- Bruce Lee

War of words

One of my friends here put this up in his gtalk status message: "All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness, and others by sense." which I forwarded to my friend(a girl) and pat came the reply: An equivalent phrase would be "All men are flirts, and they have neither sense nor shame" :P to which I replied back: "All men are flirts, some don't know how to and the rest are not restrained by repeated shame." and the argument came to a rest!

Interesting study

A randomized trial of the effect of estrogen and testosterone on economic behavior concludes "There was no significant effect of estrogen or testosterone on any of the studied behaviors." http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/04/03/0812757106.short?rss=1

What next to outsource?

Markets in everything

Deron Bauman reports to me:

Information Age Prayer is a site that charges you a monthly fee to say prayers for you. A typical charge is $4.95 per month to say three prayers specified by you each day. "We use state of the art text to speech synthesizers to voice each prayer at a volume and speed equivalent to typical person praying," the company states. "Each prayer is voiced individually, with the name of the subscriber displayed on screen. "Prices, however, are dictated by the length of the prayer. As noted in the Information Age Prayer FAQ, "A discounted prayer will cost less than other prayers of similar length."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090326/sc_livescience/youpaycomputerpraysforyou

Office politics

Just too cute!!!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1164937/Seven-tubs-seven-bubs-How-latest-child-pacifiers-buckets-fun.html

Office pod

The next version of a small cubicle?
http://www.springwise.com/homes_housing/officepod/

Back to basics of an MBA

It is that time of the term when the guns are loaded and aimed against us. And some of them have already started blazing. That means only one thing. Very less sleep and catching sleep in pieces of a few hours or even half hour naps between classes. Last term minimum sleep hours (not naps) were of 2 hours. Now it is further reduced to 1 hr (in the night, but we sleep in the day instead whenever possible).

What do you prefer?

Commonly heard: "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

Calvin's version: "When life gives you lemons, wing 'em right back and add a few of your own."

This is new to me: "When life gives you lemons, find someone who has vodka and throw a party!" :)

Holding on

"Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go" - Herman Hesse

Hmmm

"The soul that sees beauty may sometimes walk alone." 

source: http://brokenbit.blogspot.com/2007/12/hmmm.html

WOW!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/j75bdupktu6wxy7/Mr.Bean%20in%20AIM.mp4?dl=0

A standing ovation with so many happy faces after my movie show; wow! :))))

Today, I had my movie screening in the class. This is how it went: My assigned number was 4, but I had requested my other classmates that I will go last. Everyone agreed. At least 3 or 4 people asked me in the class when was my movie showing. There was a lot of excitement about my movie... maybe because they knew what was the movie all about. The movie was called "Mr.Bean in AIM" and I was the lead actor enacting Mr.Bean. So when my turn came, and as I was walking down the staircase from the back of the room, there was a lot of applause and cheering all around. I was quite surprised about it. I went on stage in a Tshirt and jeans (The only presentation till today when I was not in formals). I was not serious like before, I was cheerful and happy and talking to a class as if there was no professor. The first thing I told the class was "I have never had so much applause before", at which the class was laughing. I started off with a presentation. The starting slide was named "The walkabout presentation of Ajit Jagannathan (Also, known my many other names in campus :) )". Then I went on to explain why I wanted to do this movie as a project and had a few slides of testimonials of what my classmates had to say about me as of dec 2008 and as of now. It included some truths like my name kept by my neighbour "Ajeeb" which definitely entertained many people. So I started off the movie and people were laughing and cheering all around as the movie began. The movie was for 20 minutes and there were many a laughs during the movie. As the movie ended , there was a lot of applause, I went to the computer, reduced the volume and as I turn around I see all the people giving me a standing ovation. There have been only two other standing ovations in the class so far this term in 3 months. So this is definitely an achievement for me. I clearly did not expect this for a comical movie I had made. I bowed to the audience and they were still clapping. As mine was the last one of the day, after clapping, they settled down and waited for the professor to say something or call it a day. The professor soon called it a day and many a people came to me. They congratulated me, shaked hands and even hugged me to say what a wonderful job it was. It has been a wonderful experience and people have praised me for my acting and the creativity of the movie, including the details that were included in the movie. The movie was an equal effort of me, my room mate Shravan and my groupmate Sameer without whom this project wouldnt have seen the day of light. I plan to put up the movie in youtube and send out the link to my family and friends soon :)