me, myself and the ginsoakedboy

Indian Government's so-called Rescue Plan - Cairo 2011

2011-02-03T00:13:00.001+05:30

The situation in Egypt was beyond anyone's expectation and control. Given the circumstances, countries around the world - US, China, Turkey or Libya came forward and evacuated their citizens in record time. The US sent military planes to get people to closer places like Istanbul and Athens (with reimbursement for their current tickets/itineraries), Turkey sent 3 planes to evacuate people, so did other countries. China, Germany and France sent officers to all terminals to get citizens together and out on time. The key fact here is that all of these were done for FREE. Along with this, Governments across the world sent consulate officers to pressurise the state carrier of Egypt, Egypt Air, to make sure they were sending passengers with valid tickets within a limited time period.

The Indian Embassy played its role by setting up a control centre - the only difference being that it was primarily manned by the Indian Citizens group in Egypt, rather than government officials. The Govt of India did not bother pushing Egypt Air to send at least a few flights to India, as a small part of their schedule. Quoting an Egypt Air official at Cairo on Monday, 31 Jan 2011, "If your own government is not interested in talking to us, why should we push ourselves".

The Embassy and Indian citizen base in Egypt pushed the Indian Govt to send planes to help Indians get out, but not without direct pressure from Tata Steel, because of a conference in Egypt with over 150 people from Tata Steel stuck in the crisis.

The worst was still to come - the Indian Government charged INR 45000 to each Indian passenger to provide the so-called "rescue" to reach back home. This was 4 times the standard one way fare from Cairo to Mumbai, and in a crisis situation like this, an unacceptable one. The way it was projected to the media and people across the country made it sound like a humanitarian act, but was, unfortunately, the exact opposite.

The government took sheer advantage of Indians, making them pay through their nose. When a certain channel raised this issue, our dear MEA, Mr S M Krishna, pointed out that none of the countries took the citizens out for free - a blatant lie. Moreover, he started comparing it with the rates available through travel sites on various airlines, through dynamic pricing. Probably he forgot that it was with Indian public money that the Indian state carrier was bailed out with (refer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8523332.stm) for their otherwise inefficiency and political privileges.

Is this what we can expect as ordinary Indian citizens, who pay honest taxes and still get situations like this in return? And to remind us, there are still some Indians who remain stuck in Cairo, as on date, because they cannot afford a USD 1000 ticket to their way home in a crisis, and because their government does not believe in helping them, with their own tax money.

Jai Hind, is it??

Out of (Caller) Tune?

2010-02-08T15:14:00.005+05:30

3 idiots, Paa, Ishqiya.... some of the popular movie tracks you tend to hear when calling people in the recent past. The caller tune concept has caught up pretty well with the Indian audience, contributing more than 55% of the Indian VAS market (which was pegged at USD 1.5 bn in 2008 and growing real fast).

Offlate, you would have observed this stupidly recorded voice talking out "Is gaane ko apni caller tune banane ke liye..." (i.e. copy this tune by pressing a certain key. charges are x&y and terms and conditions apply).

I have heard this on Reliance but not sure if it plays on other networks as well. (Probably Airtel - http://www.thinkdigit.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-120819.html)

Hard to believe someone could come up with such a flawed model and have it implemented too.

It is phenomenally screwed up on two major grounds -

One - you ruin the entire fun of having a good caller tune because all you hear is the same irritating message whenever you call a number. So 'user experience' which is suppose to be the basis of VAS (because I pay a premium over the basic services) goes for a complete toss.

Two - IT DOES NOT HELP YOUR REVENUES, because most of the times the person you call picks up the phone before the goddamn message ends and the caller song starts... which in normal case, is the duration of about 2-3 rings or the first couple of lines of a normal caller tune.

Hence, despite being irritated, I do not know what song is being played so HOW on earth will I replicate it and contribute to your topline?

Get it Mr Amazing-Marketing-Genius-who-designed-this-concept?

Live from Door Darshan, yeh hai Aajtak

2010-02-04T17:28:00.016+05:30

The Divergence and Convergence of Indian Television?

Just think about the nostalgic childhood TV time most of us 'average' Indian homes had. DD was the only channel around. DD Metro caught up sometime later.

Who can forget Humlog, Stone Boy, Giant Robot, Chayageet, Nukkad, Surabhi, Buniyaad and ofcourse our good old News from Delhi (lets keep the discussion around government control for later :) )... phenomenal entertainment value driven by a basket of content.

Basically, one channel showing us
- News
- Soaps
- Events (Live / Deferred)
- Kids Shows
- Music

Past the liberalization of '91 and fast forward to the today's television.

A plethora of genres and a bombardment of options in each genre. Indian viewers have access to over 400 channels (please excuse me for the lack of actual data). A classic case of divergence!

So whats new?

The era of breaking news..... the new improved one stop shop for your daily dose of entertainment!

From religion...

to nature

bollywood ...

bollywood newswire...

celeb talk shows...

reality shows...

informative news... (dont miss this one)

game shows...

live events...

and soaps!

They have got it all!

So for you nostalgic people who want a one stop solution to your tv entertainment needs... switch to Breaking News on indian television!

.... on a slightly serious note, this is what Indian audience has come to and demands for; and hence the supply and an excellent business model around it.

Dekhte rahiye... ye hai... beep beep!

Images courtesy - indianrationalists.blogspot.com, undercoverindian.com, net-planet.org, rediff, google, broadbandforum.in, mediakhabar.com

Perceptions about relations!

2007-01-07T22:58:00.000+05:30

A certain movie I saw today had a dialogue - "the current world is getting too complex and to deal with it, we need to build equally complex relations".

How does one really differentiate between relations which were otherwise supposed to be the usual ones? Is it more of a break-up of the existing framework or an entirely new platform?

The first person perspective, I guess, is divided into three aspects - social, professional and personal. Colleagues and friends, traditionally an overlapping set, seem to drift towards two mutually exclusive sets, barring a few exceptions. To complicate it further, situations demand the same person to be in both the sets as two instances, existing independent of each other. Can this itself be considered as an "instance" of the statement earlier?

I dunno a jackshit about philosophy or human behaviour, but a little thinking opens to a lot more...

Life @ VGSoM

2006-09-04T23:55:00.000+05:30

Finally...... i get a small breather to post here

Last coupla weeks have been like a martian... some weird timings.... sleep at dawnbreak (east of india... day breaks at 5 am) ... get up at 8... eat ... caffeine doses every 2 hrs --> LIFE

Its been crazy since day one.... juggling between cases (studying and taking ), assignments, 'x'plans (x=variable {A..Z}), volleyball, night canteen, adding mass to body (otherwise called eating), presentations, reports and ... uhmm.... mmm... studies

The interesting part is... end of the day... U kinda like it

Faculty has some real gurus... giving a different level of thinking... gets you thinking on your fundas and rework on your perspectives and perceptions. Junta happens to be senior, quite senior, having a good touch of practicality in every discussion/chat/argument that happens in and out of the class. Add to that the usual hostel life (ah....finally!), lots of arbit talk and incoherent happenings giving the smirk and smile on a hard day's night.

Wel....... cutting it short now..... gotta get back to POM (ops mgmt) ... exams frm 15th can be painful

Rock on ...

Main Bhi MBA

2006-08-05T02:48:00.000+05:30

Sometime in the month of March '06, I realised I did have some luck left in life. I got an admit for my MBA (as mentioned earlier) at one of the very respected institutes in the country - the probability of that being lower than me getting struck by lightning right now! ..... I am still alive.... so you can well guess.

Writing this at 4 am in the morning from my hostel room at Vinod Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur.

The "B-school" life begins...

Freedom... Bull Da Shit!

2006-07-11T23:09:00.000+05:30

Some goddam terrorist organnisation would be partying somewhere after todays blasts in Mumbai. And a few more following the same to a so-called-common-cause "freedom".

The hell they define themselves to be freedom fighters, gutless SoBs!

People keep wondering how come politicians and such other individuals always escape any such incident. The answer is simple - Why on earth would anybody hurt his own partner - and I mean it!

Our "neta" and "babu" parade is nothing but opportunity and convenience providers to these cowards, by means of their wonderful corruption. Pay the right price - they bend over.

Check these and take a guess!

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/Dec292005/national2156020051228.asp
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1584321,0008.htm

Rest is upto you!

Har Ki Doon Trek

2006-06-14T19:48:00.000+05:30

Youth Hostel Association of India – YHAI - Har Ki Doon Trek – 2006

May 10, 2006 - May 24, 2006.

An experience that gives you a high [pun intended ;)]

Pics have been uploaded here.

Day 1: Dehradun – 2200 ft.

1600 hrs:

We reached reporting camp Dehradun. A beautiful town growing up to a city. Pleasant weather. Unfortunately, we did not have much time in hand to move around the place, excepting the market where we bought an amazing pair of trekking shoes – a smart decision.

2000 hrs:

Had dinner at the camp, after an informal round of introduction and a formal one post that. Our group had 3 from Bombay, 2 from Gujarat, 1 from Jodhpur, 3 from Delhi and 10 from Solapur.

Milo follows dinner in the trek. Good for the health.

2330 hrs: After some usual TP and stuff, dozed off for an early morning.

Day 2: Base Camp Sankri – 5800 ft.

0500 hrs:

Good Morning – boy…. Ain’t that EARLY!

Got to the morning routine and pushed off to Sankri – our base camp. Its about 200 km from Dehradun – but takes around 8-9 hours.

The road is tricky. The bus went millimeters of the edge of the road… and when I say edge… it also implies the cliff J. The fact that it did not go down assures me that I haven’t committed a big sin till now… else God had a chance ;).

But the view is worth every bit of it. We go up the Yamuna Valley. Then up Tons river, one of the major tributary of Yamuna. The rapids were a beauty to watch, surrounded by the mighty Himalayas. An amazing road to drive on, assuming you are skilled enough.

Lunch stop was at Purola. Had “pack lunch” – a term you would get too used to once you go for the trek. This was the last village in the region to have connectivity through telephone.

Then came an interesting bit. We convinced the driver and got on top of the bus for the remaining hour or so of the journey. The curves and turns and the wind in your face and the tree branches on your head…Damn neat fun.

Reached Sankri at around 16:00 hrs. Welcomed by the field director and others. Got to the tents and unwinded a bit. That was followed by the usual tea session. Had a walk in the village. The simplicity of life stuns anyone from a metro like Mumbai. One street defines the entire market – Ten shops, two eateries, one tailor, two doctors, one barber – Period.

Then came dinner – fairly decent stuff. Lastly, the “camp-fire” ceremony. This is a tricky part. It can be damn cool – if you have a group which is enthu – else it can be a real bad end to the day.

Day 3: Base Camp Sankri – 5800 ft.

0500 hrs:

Bed tea – why did the Brits invent tea… and that too served at 5 in the morning! Human Rights, anyone?

Had a light exercise – the definition of “light is relative”. It’s a jog for a kilometer and some free hand exercises. Then back to camp – breakfast – pack lunch – a really heavy backpack – and off to “Acclimatization Trek”.

0830 hrs

This starts with Rappelling. A neat wall of about 25-30 feet. Great experience for first timers like me. Then you go for a trek in the nearby region. We gained about a 1000 feet.

We carried max possible load on us… turned out to be a good practice for the actual thing.

Back to camp. Dinner. Campfire. MILO. Goodnight.

Day 4: Juda Talao – 8,500 ft

0500 hrs:

Same ol’ stuff.

0630 hrs: Light exercises… and actually light for a change.

0730:

Off to higher camp one – i.e. Juda Talao.

It’s a distance of about 4 km from the base camp and an altitude gain of almost 2700 ft, implying a pretty high gradient.

Not difficult as such, but it was definitely tiring as we were gaining some good altitude and our bodies were not really accustomed to the entire funda of the trek. Difficult day for people who thought they were out for a picnic. We crossed a small village en route. That’s where we first asked people the Eternal Question – “Where is the Grass?” And we got our first view of the savior of sanity – Grass a.k.a. Marijuana – blooming in full glory in its kingdom.

The rest of the trek was pretty okay. Had a lunch break somewhere. Reached the next camp at about 1400 hrs. Then followed the “reporting and waiting for all” ritual. When everyone arrived, the camp director updated us on the schedule at the camp. And since rain was expected, we had to cancel a small nature walk nearby. But a few of us guys managed to go anyway, as one of us had been on the trek earlier.

We went to a small meadow (which also happened to be a feeding ground for wolves) or opening in the forest which had a good view of the snow clad peaks, but couldn’t get that, ‘coz of the clouds. But we did here a call of a wild animal. In all probability it was a leopard – which is local to that region – or a bear.

We got back to the camp in an hour. Then followed the soup and dinner and the usual Milo. Then after we got into the tents, the first rains, we met, started. These were accompanied by hailstones as well. Neat scene.

Day 5: Kedar Kaanta – 10,700 ft.

0500 hrs:

Up and ready to move.

0700 hrs:

A relatively longer walk today. About 8 kilometers and an altitude gain of 2200 ft. The gradient was not that tough. An initial part which was fairly steep, but the rest was quite okay.

Lunch point was in a meadow. There is this concept there. Since there are a lot of trekkers on that route, the local people set up make-shift stalls at certain points where they know trekkers would rest. They provide you eggs, tea, milk and Maggi. We got fresh milk at that particular one as there are no cattle further up. You have too stick to powder milk.

The walk can be a mix of heat and chill. The sun is hot as you have direct rays hitting you. The wind is cold because of the altitude. You are really warm because of the work-out. The sweat feels cold because of the wind. End of day, you are still guessing whether you need to keep your jacket on or not.

Reached the camp at about 1500 – 1600 hrs. It was a fantastic spot. A huge open space at the foot of the Kedar Kaanta peak. The high altitude grassland, also known as “Bugyal” ended in the valley.

For a second I thought it was a hazy image due to the clouds. But it was, in fact, a series of peaks the valley looked upon. Atleast a dozen small peaks in a row, one behind the other. That’s when the feeling of the altitude started sinking in.

As many places in the Himalayas do, this one also had a mythological link to it. This is the region where the Kauravas, from Mahabharata, are worshipped. There was also a Karna temple on the same ground. There is an annual fair held at the same grounds, where thousands from the region gather.

Personally, I found the place to have a spooky feel to it. Didn’t know why – but it did.

Day 6: Dhunda – 10,500 ft

We left relatively early, as the walk was quite a bit tough as well as long. About 12 km and we had to climb the Kedar Kaanta peak and get to the other side, along a ridge!

The initial couple of kilometers to the Kedar Kaanta peak was quite a climb - about three slopes and a gradient of about 75-80 degrees. A gain in altitude of about 2200 feet in less than 2 km! There was no vegetation apart from small sparse grass, above 10,000 feet on this peak.

Then came the beauty. Kedar Kaanta peak – altitude 12,700 ft – the highest point of our trek. All around you could see big, tall, might peaks – all snow clad. One side was the Himachal Pradesh range of the Himalayas; another side was the passes and the ranges heading towards Tibet; a third was towards the final destination – Har Ki Dun.

Moments to cherish through out one’s life.

The walk ahead was a very different one. It was a ridge. You could see the next camp, about 8 km away. The trail was along the mountain top – valleys on both sides. There were some real cross winds blowing across. Maintaining your balance and concentration was the key.

The rest of the day’s trek was quite the same. More of a descent – which though easy – needed more alertness.

Reached the camp at about 1600 hours. The weather was quite cold. Being one of the higher camps, it was closer to the snowline. Next to the camp was the first glacier we saw – a small one – a frozen stream to be precise.

The rest of the schedule was more or less the same.

One amazing thing was the water. We came across hundreds of small streams, rivers, waterfalls and different water sources throughout the trek. Every water we tasted had a peculiarity. Some were sweet, some mineral, some had a tinge of herbs, some were bland – but most of them were cold – and I mean intrinsically cold – not the freezer cold we know of.

The evening temperature used to drop to something like 2-3 degree Celsius – and that is disregarding the wind factor. If included the effective temperature would go down by another 5 degrees. And the fun part – we did not have correct “winter” clothes. A jacket or a windcheater and a sweater. That’s it. Grass – where art thou?

Day 7: Talouti – 11,700 ft

Laugh. We did. On ourselves.

Left the earlier camp all happy go lucky. Looking forward to a relatively easy walk – were made to imagine that. And it did turn out – an Imagination.

A tough initial part till lunch. Quite exhausting. Lunch. Rest.

Then came the real thing. For the next three to four kilometers, we had to cut and cross snow and ice on glaciers. This was basically frozen rivers on the mountain side, on the slope. A very dicey scenario. One slip and in all probability you can reach Delhi – via the Yamuna route. That was accompanied by the cherry on the cake – rain! And the complimentary wind and hail. What more can one ask for!

That was some true adrenaline rush. For once, we did not remember fatigue or tiredness or altitude sickness or anything. It was purely the “kick” of the thing that was in our minds.

The last stretch gave us some bad rains. Managed to reach the camp by 1600 hrs.

This being the highest camp of the trek, the cold was bad! We were in spitting distance of snow-clad peaks and the chill of the air could be felt to the freaking bones. Grass, anyone!

Dinner was at 1700 hrs. Off into the sack by 1800 hrs.

Day 8: Lekhathach – 10,000 ft

This was a cool stretch. Not tiring as most of it was downhill. Through some real dense forest. Humming some Beatles and Floyd.

Just a couple of kilometers before the camp was the Lekhathach village. Some civilization after 5 days. Nice.

Had some good tea and played some cricket with the kids. Cricket at 10,000 ft. Not Bad eh?

Reached the camp. Nice, small, relatively warm place. The best part was the next walk was even easier.

Relaxed. Had some great food. Grass. Laugh. Sleep.

Day 9: Seema – 9,500 ft

A small walk today, about 6 km. Left the camp at a lazy 9:30. Given the stamina and the pace of most of the batch, we could have reached the next camp as early as 11:30 am. But that would have been a pain for the camp director there.

So ambled our way – peacefully. Crossed a river on the way, where it was feasible to have a dip. The sun was out. Not that cold a water. Manageable rapids. Found a small pool in the rocks and had a good dip – after 7 days. Definition of “freshness” changed.

Halted at a village en route for an hour or so. Reached the camp as slow as possible, about 1530 hrs.

Seema is the common camp for the last lap. The return route being the same, earlier batches halt here. We met a batch which came back from Har Ki Dun. Had a nice chat. A couple of rounds of dumb-charades and singing etc. Followed by the camp fire. Milo and Goodnight.

Day 10: Har Ki Dun (HKD) – 11,500 ft

A long stretch of about 16-17 km and an altitude gain of about 2,500 ft. Started early – 0730 hrs. All geared up for a long and tiring one.

The first half is a straight incline. Takes a lot of stamina to push. People tried to hurry up a bit so as to avoid the rains – which used to strike precisely at 1400 hrs. We were at ease, discussing everything under the sun – business plans, relationships, cars, economy. Reached the tea point at around 1000 hrs. Had a nice breakfast as had skipped the morning one at camp. The view all through was fab! We were heading towards a junction of valleys, at a height of 1,500 to 2,000 ft above the rivers. The walk towards the half-way point was relatively easy. The lunch-point was a dhaba types joint. It was situated close to a waterfall, with the stream running under it. Talk of Prime Location.

Had a heavy lunch, so had to walk real slow post that. And also, the fatigue was catching up. The last quarter was bad. The climb, fatigue and now – rains – real hard rains with some crazy winds. All wet. Period.

A funny part was where we had to cross a small river, about 20 ft wide. The rapids were fast enough to pull an elephant along. The bridge was, well, two logs. And one of them believed in elasticity. Somehow fooled our own minds to believe that we were in the Russian circus and could cross it. Crossed it both ways (while returning too) successfully - that’s why I can call it funny.

The first guy reached at about 1130 hrs – now that’s stamina – fastest any trekker hads reached till date. The last group reached at 1600 hrs.

The campsite was a beauty. In the HKD valley, at about 11,500 ft above sea level. Two sides were snow peaks – the HKD peak (18,000 ft) and the Swarg-rohini peak (21,000 ft). The third side was the valley opening. And the last had a glacier, the Jaundher glacier. And a beautiful river flowing along the plains of the campsite. The water originating from the glacier.

The glacier and the peaks were about a kilometer or two of straight line distance from the camp. The ground temperature was about a degree above zero. The winds were freezing – Effectively leading the temperature to four below zero. In short – it was cold – freaking Cold! And we were wet. Survived that night somehow, thanks to the amazing sleeping bags.

Day 11: Seema – 9,500 ft

Next morning, we were in a wonderful shape to enjoy the location and sink in its beauty. The sun was up. The skies were clear. Yes – HKD is beautiful – really really beautiful.

Headed back to Seema real fast. Non-stop yet relaxed. Reached at about 1330 hrs. Lazed around and slept. Well… retreat has started!

We had met the batch immediately before and after us en-route to HKD. The batch pre and post those were at the camps. Met the later at Seema again. Usual fun and stuff.

Slept very relaxed that night.

Day 12: Taluka – 7,000 ft.

Left at ease after bidding farewell and wishes to the batch leaving for HKD. The walk wasn’t as easy as we thought it would be. It was quite long. About 15 km or so.

Reached the Taluka village. Had a grand lunch there. Hogged on like crazy on eggs and stuff. The campsite was about a couple of kilometers from the village.

Nothing eventful, excepting a good round of dumb-charades.

Day 13: Sankri – Base Camp – 5,800 ft.

An easy flat walk of about 8 km. Almost a motorable road. Took about 3 hours to touch base at Sankri.

Mission Accomplished!

Had a nice bath and a shave. Were feeling human again.

Had a walk in the village. Realised the sensex had crashed.

Reload – Metro Life.

Day 14: Dehradun – Reporting Camp – 2,200 ft.

Back by bus to Dehradun. Called home to inform everyone of our existence.

Train to Delhi at night.

Day 15: Back to square one – Delhi.

---

One very different experience – providing a great break from the usual rut of life. Away from our mankind. Tranquility personified.

“Shine on … Crazy Diamond”

Signing off

Kunal Nagar

2006-06-06T15:42:00.000+05:30

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Diary of a Non-OBC man...

2006-04-21T12:30:00.000+05:30

(got it in my mail .... takin the liberty of posting it.. It needs to be)

Is this where we are heading?

---
An excerpt from Emcee's diary exactly 50 years from now

Ahmedabad, 30 April 2056: I attended the bash at the IIM-OBC Alumni Association to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the reservation of seats for OBCs (Other Backward Castes) in IIMs. Since I'm not an OBC, I was not supposed to attend, but at present, we MBFCs (Moderately Backward Forward Castes) together with the Non-Scheduled Tribes have a political alliance with the OBCs. We sipped champagne and talked about how so many of us had progressed from reserved seats in the IIMs to reserved jobs to reserved promotions. Unfortunately, the party broke up when a Non-scheduled Tribes faculty member objected to the OBCs dancing with all the pretty girls — he wanted equal opportunities for every caste at each dance. I pointed out that the Non-scheduled Tribes had exceeded the quota of champagne reserved for them. The party ended in a pitched caste battle.

1) May 2056: Today, I became president of the IIM Board of Directors. Under the present rotating presidency system, a member of each caste is made the president by turn. When it was the turn of the MBFCs for president, they had to choose me because I'm the only MBFC on the campus. True, I'm only the campus dhobi, but then every caste must be given an equal opportunity. All those centuries of oppression by the OSBFCs (Only Slightly Backward Forward Castes) and the OFCs (Other Forward Castes) must be rectified. I hope to restore the high standards at IIM — I overheard some foreigners calling it the Indian Institute of Morons, the other day.

2) May 2056: They've announced the cricket team for the series against Australia. I was overjoyed when they chose an MBFC man as captain. But my hopes were dashed when I realised he was a Most Backward Forward Caste and not a Moderately Backward Forward Caste. The selection committee lamented that it was gross discrimination that no member from the Jarowa tribe (the Stone Age tribe in the
Andamans) had ever found a place in the Indian cricket team. A squad has since been dispatched to the Andamans to capture a Jarowa tribal to play in the national team. I hope he will improve their performance — they had an innings defeat against the Maldives recently. I would have played myself except for the fact that I lost a leg some years ago when I was in hospital with a toothache and a doctor recruited through the Unscheduled Caste quota extracted my leg instead of my tooth.

3) May 2056: There are too many NFCs (Neo-Forward castes) in the IT business. Under the terms of the Business Reservation Act, their firms will now be taken over by the other castes. I hope they will be able to restore the Indian IT industry back to its former glory. For some unfathomable reason, it has gone down the drain after job reservations were implemented. I went for a movie featuring star actor Mungeri Ram. He may lack teeth, be four-feet-three and have hair growing out of his nose, but this year it's the turn of the EBC-RYs (Extremely Backward Caste-Rural Yokels) to be stars and Mungeri Ram is the best of the lot. I wonder why foreign movies have become so popular.

4) May 2056: A truly great day. We now have an OFBMBC (Other Forward But Moderately Backward Caste) general as the Head of the Armed Forces. I hope he'll be able to win back the territory we lost ever since reservations were implemented in the Army. Since then, the north has been taken by Pakistan, the North-east by China, the east by Bangladesh and the south by Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Only last winter, we lost the war against Bhutan and free India is now limited to the western coastal states. But I'm sure the OFBMBC general will turn the tide.

5) May 2056: My wife and I have been blessed with a bonny daughter. Since my wife's an SBBNSBC (Slightly Backward But Not So Backward Caste), my daughter will be an MBFC-SBBNSBC. I must lobby for reservation for her caste. She's the only member and I'm sure she has a great future.

---

God save us... or is it... Make us an XMR-OBC-II ?

Life @ KGP...

2006-04-14T14:13:00.000+05:30

Went to IIT KGP to test the waters at VGSOM.... written keeping in mind my fellow batchmates who havent been able to drop in there before the course. A good read for anyone... anyways :)

DISCLAIMER: This is the authors viewpoint of things around him. You may or may not agree with it. It wont matter to him :D

Part 1:

Kolkatta: Its chaos!

Rite from the time you step out of the flight/train to the time you get into another one... you dunno whats happenin man!
Its not tht its too fast or something... its different yaar. Anyways... u will understand once you go thr.

Getting to Kharagpur from Kolkatta is a nightmare. You easily get a local train ticket (abt 20 odd bucks), which gets u there in abt 2 hrs 45 min or so. But can be difficult to manage if you have good amt of luggage. Alternatively, you have an "express" train (120 for reserved sleeper berth, or 45 for nreserved tiket) which can get you there in abt 2 hrs, but wud require prior bookin. Or else you need to pay the touts/agents there to get the work done.

Or the best way is if you have 2-3 ppl with you, just take a cab (prepaid) from the airport or train terminus. They charge about 1800 (which is bloody exhorbitant, as a matter of fact it is much more expensv per KM than the flight from mumbai to Kol)

Nahin toh, just take a direct train to KGP... tension hi nahin.

Part 2:

KGP: A huge place with only 2 things important - the railway colony and IIT obvsly.

Take a cycle rick from KGP station or a cab to IIT. Rick will be about 30 bucks or so. Cab wud be 100-150 (dunno). Initially you will feel bad to see the poor chap pulling you and your luggage in the scorchig sun. But i guess you wud get used to it. Luggage jayada ho aur do se adhik log ho... so kripya cab lijiye.... for the simple reason... u wont fit in.

Part 3:

IIT KGP: Think IIT, think BIG.... really really BIG.

Its got that characteristic IIT feel to it, infact its probab one of the most undiluted ones around, coz u dont have metros like Bbay or delhi to affect it.

A huge campus, some really amazin facilities, about 4000 odd students, an equally big, or more support staff, a township around and in it and Cheddi's. Right.. cheddi's ... still cant blv that dude has closed down only 2wice in his 42 yrs of Dhaba-dom and not once in the past 2 decades.... wow! ... n the typical stuff u get there... Tinku, Jassi, Mohile.. .not some soap serial characters... these are burgers.. .innovated by IITians some eons ago... more on this when we meet thr.

Part 4:

VGSOM: apna mai-baap for the next 2 yrs and after tht too..

We saw the max we could... the lab, the library, etc etc.. the bldg is not as big as it looks. But it has everything you need or will need. Its a bit far from the hostel, but i guess all of us wud have a cycle atlst, so tht wud not be an issue. Infact, some of us who wud like to reduce a bit... its a golden opportunity... hehehe.

Part 5:

Hostel: MMM hall - SDS block

Crazy place, no one knows kya chal raha hai. 2 am at nite, ppl playin circket, someone celebrating someone else's bday, someone studyin, someone discussuin sm assignment or case study... lotsa lotsa lotsa stuff.

One thing though we cud not get a chance to see was the real life.. with tonz of workload and endless nite-outs. woh toh hum first hand dekhenge udahr jaake... seedhe rolling start!!

But the hostels are gr8. Beautiful (originally, not after u shift in) rooms, quite spacious. abhi toh LAN bhi hai. plus every room has a balcony. You have a novel concept here.. .tht of a "Loomie".. coz u share a loo with the room next to you. 2 ppl = 1 loo.

Part 6:

JUNTA - public... very very imp part of life there.

You are goin to spend almost the entire 24 hrs wid them. Its very very imp to find ppl who have a similar thinkin n wavelength as urs. It is very imperative to grow and succedd in and after VGSOM.

Our seniors, esp the group I was wid, Shubhu Hemnt Anshu Rachit Swaroop are gr8 guys... they are xtrmly helpful and went out of their way to show us around. Moreover, they really seem to kno each other pretty well.... n thz imp .. tht will tk sometime after we get thr.

Part 7:

YOUR PRIORITIES - get them rite..

There are infinite resources and activities. And you have 24 hrs. Eliminate, select , plan execute - thts the mantra. You need to really decide what u wanna go for, not bcoz smthng sounds happenin or imp.. its whthr u fit in. Also bcoz, whtever you do is goin to affect the entire batch and school in some or the other manner... so pls act responsibly. Also there have been cases of misfits being dropped off committees.. so take a cool decision

Also.. one very very imp point. Please leave your respective jobs with all possible cordiality. We need all possible contacts in the industry, esp big names like lehman, etc... mainly for placemtns n also guest lcturs etc .

so pls get all poss contacts u can wid ya.... bahut kaam aayenge.

Guys.. i guess bahut gyan de diya maine...

pls do a lot of thinkin on how you would go abt the 2 yrs at VGSOM. Some hard thinkin now will propel your course to a different level altogether...

signing off for now...

Kunal Nagar aka theginsoakedboy ...

Wank-hey-day...

2006-03-21T17:17:00.000+05:30

Had been to Wankhede stadium, Mumbai for the 3rd day of the 3rd test match between India and England - for the first time (breaking a jinx of earlier 3 cancellations before this one)... a freakin crazy experience!!

The scene of the match: India's first innings were on, and got off, as in - All out for 279. England was leading by 121 in the first innings, already. The second innings, England lost two wickets (could have been 4 - alas!) by end of day's play.

The scene of the stadium: The famous/infamous NORTH stand - probably the noisiest and loudest and craziest and merciless-est crowd in the entire cricketing world !!

They (including yours truly) can and will take the case of anybody - be it an Indian player or English player or any goddam player or no player... and absolutely merciless.

The noise - Synchronised "cheering", "booing", "jeering", "mud-slinging" etc etc etc - can be heard even a half a mile from the stadium and needless to say - even on the television coverage of the match.

It is not possible quantify the energy, enthusiasm, interest, love-of-game of these guys in words - trust me!

The least-est possible is - Man, they rock!!

a good high...

2006-03-21T17:05:00.000+05:30

Have been trying to get into an Yem-Bee-Yea (MBA for the non-accentuated) for the past two years... its ridiculously tough to get into a "good" Bee-school in India, especially the IIMs and likes.

The chances of Bush finding Osama, or vice-versa, are higher.. much higher!!!

End-of-Season 2005, I managed to get final calls / admits from two very good schools - SIBM (Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune) and VGSOM (Vinod Gupta School of Management) - IIT Kharagpur.... YESSSSSS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Have to decide on a final one soon)

It gives you a different high... much more than 5 shots of vodka and Syd Barrett (read Floyd) ever can!!

Life can be beautiful sometimes...

Einstein

2006-01-10T14:18:00.000+05:30

Albert Einstein's Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris - December 1929

If my theory of relativity is proven correct,
Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world.

Should my theory prove untrue,
France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Ciphering ciphers...

2005-12-16T14:04:00.000+05:30

Some real good code breaking stuff...

http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS/

The online contest is long over.. but the game is still on.

Try your luck guys!!!

hahaha.... Oh that one was on me

2005-12-13T14:49:00.000+05:30

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Read this quote by Douglas Adams somewhere... laughed... then realised .. Well thats me.

Constructive posts take time to bake.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

2005-10-05T10:38:00.000+05:30

For those of you who still havent read it...

The Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.

After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
My second story is about love and loss.
I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired.

How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

status quo

2005-09-27T12:10:00.000+05:30

nobody dies virgin, life screws us all.

will post sometime later...

a flat world

2005-08-22T17:58:00.000+05:30

It's a Flat World, After All
An article by Thomas Friedman of the NY Times

In 1492 Christopher Columbus set sail for India, going west. He had the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. He never did find India, but he called the people he met ''Indians'' and came home and reported to his king and queen: ''The world is round.'' I set off for India 512 years later. I knew just which direction I was going. I went east. I had Lufthansa business class, and I came home and reported only to my wife and only in a whisper: ''The world is flat.''

And therein lies a tale of technology and geoeconomics that is fundamentally reshaping our lives -- much, much more quickly than many people realize. It all happened while we were sleeping, or rather while we were focused on 9/11, the dot-com bust and Enron -- which even prompted some to wonder whether globalization was over. Actually, just the opposite was true, which is why it's time to wake up and prepare ourselves for this flat world, because others already are, and there is no time to waste.

I wish I could say I saw it all coming. Alas, I encountered the flattening of the world quite by accident. It was in late February of last year, and I was visiting the Indian high-tech capital, Bangalore,

working on a documentary for the Discovery Times channel about outsourcing. In short order, I interviewed Indian entrepreneurs who wanted to prepare my taxes from Bangalore, read my X-rays from Bangalore, trace my lost luggage from Bangalore and write my new software from Bangalore. The longer I was there, the more upset I became -- upset at the realization that while I had been off covering the 9/11 wars, globalization had entered a whole new phase, and I had missed it. I guess the eureka moment came on a visit to the campus of Infosys Technologies, one of the crown jewels of the Indian outsourcing and software industry. Nandan Nilekani, the Infosys C.E.O., was showing me his global video-conference room, pointing with pride to a wall-size flat-screen TV, which he said was the biggest in Asia. Infosys, he explained, could hold a virtual meeting of the key players from its entire global supply chain for any project at any time on that supersize screen. So its American designers could be on the screen speaking with their Indian software writers and their Asian manufacturers all at once. That's what globalization is all about today, Nilekani said. Above the screen there were eight clocks that pretty well summed up the Infosys workday: 24/7/365. The clocks were labeled U.S. West, U.S. East, G.M.T., India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia.

''Outsourcing is just one dimension of a much more fundamental thing happening today in the world,'' Nilekani explained. ''What happened over the last years is that there was a massive investment in technology, especially in the bubble era, when hundreds of millions of dollars were invested in putting broadband connectivity around the world, undersea cables, all those things.'' At the same time, he added, computers became cheaper and dispersed all over the world, and there was an explosion of e-mail software, search engines like Google and proprietary software that can chop up any piece of work and send one part to Boston, one part to Bangalore and one part to Beijing, making it easy for anyone to do remote development. When all of these things suddenly came together around 2000, Nilekani said, they ''created a platform where intellectual work, intellectual capital, could be delivered from anywhere. It could be disaggregated, delivered, distributed, produced and put back together again -- and this gave a whole new degree of freedom to the way we do work, especially work of an intellectual nature. And what you are seeing in Bangalore today is really the culmination of all these things coming together.''

At one point, summing up the implications of all this, Nilekani uttered a phrase that rang in my ear. He said to me, ''Tom, the playing field is being leveled.'' He meant that countries like India were now able to compete equally for global knowledge work as never before -- and that America had better get ready for this. As I left the Infosys campus that evening and bounced along the potholed road back to Bangalore, I kept chewing on that phrase: ''The playing field is being leveled.''

''What Nandan is saying,'' I thought, ''is that the playing field is being flattened. Flattened? Flattened? My God, he's telling me the world is flat!''

Here I was in Bangalore -- more than 500 years after Columbus sailed over the horizon, looking for a shorter route to India using the rudimentary navigational technologies of his day, and returned safely to prove definitively that the world was round -- and one of India's smartest engineers, trained at his country's top technical institute and backed by the most modern technologies of his day, was telling me that the world was flat, as flat as that screen on which he can host a meeting of his whole global supply chain. Even more interesting, he was citing this development as a new milestone in human progress and a great opportunity for India and the world -- the fact that we had made our world flat!

This has been building for a long time. Globalization 1.0 (1492 to 1800) shrank the world from a size large to a size medium, and the dynamic force in that era was countries globalizing for resources and imperial conquest. Globalization 2.0 (1800 to 2000) shrank the world from a size medium to a size small, and it was spearheaded by companies globalizing for markets and labor. Globalization 3.0 (which started around 2000) is shrinking the world from a size small to a size tiny and flattening the playing field at the same time. And while the dynamic force in Globalization 1.0 was countries globalizing and the dynamic force in Globalization 2.0 was companies globalizing, the dynamic force in Globalization 3.0 -- the thing that gives it its unique character -- is individuals and small groups globalizing. Individuals must, and can, now ask: where do I fit into the global competition and opportunities of the day, and how can I, on my own, collaborate with others globally? But Globalization 3.0 not only differs from the previous eras in how it is shrinking and flattening the world and in how it is empowering individuals. It is also different in that Globalization 1.0 and 2.0 were driven primarily by European and American companies and countries. But going forward, this will be less and less true. Globalization 3.0 is not only going to be driven more by individuals but also by a much more diverse -- non-Western, nonwhite -- group of individuals. In Globalization 3.0, you are going to see every color of the human rainbow take part.

''Today, the most profound thing to me is the fact that a 14-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all the tools, all the software easily available to apply knowledge however they want,'' said Marc Andreessen, a co-founder of Netscape and creator of the first commercial Internet browser. ''That is why I am sure the next Napster is going to come out of left field. As bioscience becomes more computational and less about wet labs and as all the genomic data becomes easily available on the Internet, at some point you will be able to design vaccines on your laptop.''

Andreessen is touching on the most exciting part of Globalization 3.0 and the flattening of the world: the fact that we are now in the process of connecting all the knowledge pools in the world together. We've tasted some of the downsides of that in the way that Osama bin Laden has connected terrorist knowledge pools together through his Qaeda network, not to mention the work of teenage hackers spinning off more and more lethal computer viruses that affect us all. But the upside is that by connecting all these knowledge pools we are on the cusp of an incredible new era of innovation, an era that will be driven from left field and right field, from West and East and from North and South. Only 30 years ago, if you had a choice of being born a B student in Boston or a genius in Bangalore or Beijing, you probably would have chosen Boston, because a genius in Beijing or Bangalore could not really take advantage of his or her talent. They could not plug and play globally. Not anymore. Not when the world is flat, and anyone with smarts, access to Google and a cheap wireless laptop can join the innovation fray.

When the world is flat, you can innovate without having to emigrate. This is going to get interesting. We are about to see creative destruction on steroids.

How did the world get flattened, and how did it happen so fast? It was a result of 10 events and forces that all came together during the 1990's and converged right around the year 2000. Let me go through them briefly. The first event was 11/9. That's right -- not 9/11, but 11/9. Nov. 9, 1989, is the day the Berlin Wall came down, which was critically important because it allowed us to think of the world as a single space. ''The Berlin Wall was not only a symbol of keeping people inside Germany; it was a way of preventing a kind of global view of our future,'' the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen said. And the wall went down just as the windows went up -- the breakthrough Microsoft Windows 3.0 operating system, which helped to flatten the playing field even more by creating a global computer interface, shipped six months after the wall fell.

The second key date was 8/9. Aug. 9, 1995, is the day Netscape went public, which did two important things. First, it brought the Internet alive by giving us the browser to display images and data stored on Web sites. Second, the Netscape stock offering triggered the dot-com boom, which triggered the dot-com bubble, which triggered the massive overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic telecommunications cable. That overinvestment, by companies like Global Crossing, resulted in the willy-nilly creation of a global undersea-underground fiber network, which in turn drove down the cost of transmitting voices, data and images to practically zero, which in turn accidentally made Boston, Bangalore and Beijing next-door neighbors overnight. In sum, what the Netscape revolution did was bring people-to-people connectivity to a whole new level. Suddenly more people could connect with more other people from more different places in more different ways than ever before.

No country accidentally benefited more from the Netscape moment than India. ''India had no resources and no infrastructure,'' said Dinakar Singh, one of the most respected hedge-fund managers on Wall Street, whose parents earned doctoral degrees in biochemistry from the University of Delhi before emigrating to America. ''It produced people with quality and by quantity. But many of them rotted on the docks of India like vegetables. Only a relative few could get on ships and get out. Not anymore, because we built this ocean crosser, called fiber-optic cable. For decades you had to leave India to be a professional. Now you can plug into the world from India. You don't have to go to Yale and go to work for Goldman Sachs.'' India could never have afforded to pay for the bandwidth to connect brainy India with high-tech America, so American shareholders paid for it. Yes, crazy overinvestment can be good. The overinvestment in railroads turned out to be a great boon for the American economy. ''But the railroad overinvestment was confined to your own country and so, too, were the benefits,'' Singh said. In the case of the digital railroads, ''it was the foreigners who benefited.'' India got a free ride.

The first time this became apparent was when thousands of Indian engineers were enlisted to fix the Y2K -- the year 2000 -- computer bugs for companies from all over the world. (Y2K should be a national holiday in India. Call it ''Indian Interdependence Day,'' says Michael Mandelbaum, a foreign-policy analyst at Johns Hopkins.) The fact that the Y2K work could be outsourced to Indians was made possible by the first two flatteners, along with a third, which I call ''workflow.'' Workflow is shorthand for all the software applications, standards and electronic transmission pipes, like middleware, that connected all those computers and fiber-optic cable. To put it another way, if the Netscape moment connected people to people like never before, what the workflow revolution did was connect applications to applications so that people all over the world could work together in manipulating and shaping words, data and images on computers like never before.

Indeed, this breakthrough in people-to-people and application-to-application connectivity produced, in short order, six more flatteners -- six new ways in which individuals and companies could collaborate on work and share knowledge. One was ''outsourcing.'' When my software applications could connect seamlessly with all of your applications, it meant that all kinds of work -- from accounting to software-writing -- could be digitized, disaggregated and shifted to any place in the world where it could be done better and cheaper. The second was ''offshoring.'' I send my whole factory from Canton, Ohio, to Canton, China. The third was ''open-sourcing.'' I write the next operating system, Linux, using engineers collaborating together online and working for free. The fourth was ''insourcing.'' I let a company like UPS come inside my company and take over my whole logistics operation -- everything from filling my orders online to delivering my goods to repairing them for customers when they break. (People have no idea what UPS really does today. You'd be amazed!). The fifth was ''supply-chaining.'' This is Wal-Mart's specialty. I create a global supply chain down to the last atom of efficiency so that if I sell an item in Arkansas, another is immediately made in China. (If Wal-Mart were a country, it would be China's eighth-largest trading partner.) The last new form of collaboration I call ''informing'' -- this is Google, Yahoo and MSN Search, which now allow anyone to collaborate with, and mine, unlimited data all by themselves.

So the first three flatteners created the new platform for collaboration, and the next six are the new forms of collaboration that flattened the world even more. The 10th flattener I call ''the steroids,'' and these are wireless access and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). What the steroids do is turbocharge all these new forms of collaboration, so you can now do any one of them, from anywhere, with any device.

a verse

2005-08-04T10:33:00.000+05:30

And who's to care
If I grow my hair to the sky
I'll take a wish and a prayer
Cross my fingers
Cause I always get by

Mumbai - Proud of it !

2005-07-29T12:28:00.000+05:30

I was contemplating on what I should write about from the entire spectrum of incidents that occurred following what happened in Mumbai on 26^th July 2005.

I decided to write about something which almost everyone has seemed to miss – The people of Mumbai.

I was a part of the scenario, first-hand, on the roads, drenched not from the rains but from the water below rising upwards, and I swear I was proud of it. Not because I walked the entire 16 km home, but because I was a part of this Mumbai, this “Aamchi Mumbai”. The people, the spirit, the enthusiasm, the just-do-it attitude – the least one can do is salute it.

The stories, the experiences that have come up about the people have just reminded everyone that “Sir, we are still humans after all”.

Local residents came down on the flooded, choc-o-bloc with traffic, streets, distributing drinking water, tea, biscuits, bananas, cooked food to the people stranded in their vehicles. The thousands of people walking unimaginable distances were stopped, told to relax, have a bite, make calls home and then continue after a good refreshing break.

Everyone was a stranger but a “Mumbaikar”.

Least concerned about their own homes being under water, there were the “heroes” helping women, children, elders on the streets with any kind of help needed and if possible some shelter.

Food packets were thrown into stranded trains full of people.

Despite the hunger and the fatigue, no one fought over food. Everyone shared a bite, seeing to that maximum people get a share of the food trickling in.

A simple middle class lady had dozens sheltered in her house, feeding them with whatever she could, when her own family was missing.

People having jeeps or trucks just kept on ferrying people across the flooded streets till they could.

Youngsters carried kids stranded in schools and streets to safe land.

Radio jockeys of all FM stations were up all night taking messages from people, broadcasting help information, sending help to the distressed and the isolated.

Restaurants and hotels supplied food to the schools where hundreds of students and teachers were sheltered.

Human chains formed out of nowhere to guide pedestrians along the right track.

Where the authorities claimed they could not reach, the common man reached there to help.

The list goes on and on.

Who says Mumbai is a cold place where people have no time for each other?

Who says people here are selfish?

Who says heroes are only in legends or in movies?

The spirit was there, is there and will always be there.

Been there, done that.

Proud to say “Mumbai Rocks!!!”

Questions that have Confused Mankind - III

2005-07-20T14:35:00.000+05:30

If all the nations in the world are in debt(Even US has got debts), where did all the money go?

When dog food is new and improved tasting, who tests it?

What is the speed of darkness?

Who copyrighted the copyright symbol?

Why do people say, "you've been working like a dog" when dogs just sit around all day?

Why are the numbers on a calculator and a phone reversed?

Do fish ever get thirsty?

Can you get cornered in a round room?

Why do birds not fall out of trees when they sleep?

What came first, the fruit or the color orange?

What should one call a male ladybird?

If a person suffered from amnesia and then was cured would they rememberthat they forgot?

If a person owns a piece of land do they own it all the way
down to the core of the earth? (this is nice)

Questions that have Confused Mankind - II

2005-07-18T15:38:00.000+05:30

Can you cry under water?
How important does a person have to be before they are considered assassinated instead of just murdered?
If money doesn't grow on trees then why do banks have branches?
Since bread is square, why is sandwich meat round?
Why do you have to "put your two cents in" but it's only a "penny for your thoughts"? Where's that extra penny going to?
Once you're in heaven, do you get stuck wearing the clothes you were buried in for eternity?
Why does a round pizza come in a square box?
What disease did "cured ham" actually have?
How is it that we put man on the moon before we figured out it would be a good idea to put wheels on luggage?
Why is it that people say they "slept like a baby" when babies wake up like every two hours?
If a deaf person has to go to court, is it still called a hearing?
If you drink Pepsi at work in the Coke factory, will they fire you?
Why are you IN a movie, but you're ON TV?
Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?
If a 911 operator has a heart attack, whom does he/she call?
Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet soup?
When your photo is taken for your driver's license, why do they tell you to smile? If you are stopped by the police and asked for your license, are you going to be smiling?

blowin in the wind

2005-07-14T17:17:00.000+05:30

One of my fav poems...

Blowin in the wind
- Bob Dylan

How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
Yes, 'n' how many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

How many years can a mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head,
Pretending he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

Cargo Cult Science - Richard Feynman

2005-07-11T18:01:00.000+05:30

Caltech commencement address given in 1974

During the Middle Ages there were all kinds of crazy ideas, such as that a piece of rhinoceros horn would increase potency. Then a method was discovered for separating the ideas -- which was to try one to see if it worked, and if it didn't work, to eliminate it. This method became organized, of course, into science. And it developed very well, so that we are now in the scientific age. It is such a scientific age, in fact, that we have difficulty in understanding how witch doctors could ever have existed, when nothing that they proposed ever really worked -- or very little of it did.

But even today I meet lots of people who sooner or later get me into a conversation about UFO's, or astrology, or some form of mysticism, expanded consciousness, new types of awareness, ESP, and so forth. And I've concluded that it's not a scientific world.

Most people believe so many wonderful things that I decided to investigate why they did. And what has been referred to as my curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk that I'm overwhelmed. First I started out by investigating various ideas of mysticism and mystic experiences. I went into isolation tanks and got many hours of hallucinations, so I know something about that. Then I went to Esalen, which is a hotbed of this kind of thought (it's a wonderful place; you should go visit there). Then I became overwhelmed. I didn't realize how MUCH there was.

At Esalen there are some large baths fed by hot springs situated on a ledge about thirty feet above the ocean. One of my most pleasurable experiences has been to sit in one of those baths and watch the waves crashing onto the rocky slope below, to gaze into the clear blue sky above, and to study a beautiful nude as she quietly appears and settles into the bath with me.

One time I sat down in a bath where there was a beatiful girl sitting with a guy who didn't seem to know her. Right away I began thinking, "Gee! How am I gonna get started talking to this beautiful nude woman?"

I'm trying to figure out what to say, when the guy says to her, "I'm, uh, studying massage. Could I practice on you?"

"Sure", she says. They get out of the bath and she lies down on a massage table nearby.

I think to myself, "What a nifty line! I can never think of anything like that!" He starts to rub her big toe. "I think I feel it", he says. "I feel a kind of dent -- is that the pituitary?"

I blurt out, "You're a helluva long way from the pituitary, man!"

They looked at me, horrified -- I had blown my cover -- and said, "It's reflexology!"

I quickly closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating.

That's just an example of the kind of things that overwhelm me. I also looked into extrasensory perception, and PSI phenomena, and the latest craze there was Uri Geller, a man who is supposed to be able to bend keys by rubbing them with his finger. So I went to his hotel room, on his invitation, to see a demonstration of both mindreading and bending keys. He didn't do any mindreading that succeeded; nobody can read my mind, I guess. And my boy held a key and Geller rubbed it, and nothing happened. Then he told us it works better under water, and so you can picture all of us standing in the bathroom with the water turned on and the key under it, and him rubbing the key with his finger. Nothing happened. So I was unable to investigate that phenomenon.

But then I began to think, what else is there that we believe? (And I thought then about the witch doctors, and how easy it would have been to check on them by noticing that nothing really worked.) So I found things that even more people believe, such as that we have some knowledge of how to educate. There are big schools of reading methods and mathematics methods, and so forth, but if you notice, you'll see the reading scores keep going down -- or hardly going up -- in spite of the fact that we continually use these same people to improve the methods. There's a witch doctor remedy that doesn't work. It ought to be looked into; how do they know that their method should work? Another example is how to treat criminals. We obviously have made no progress -- lots of theory, but no progress -- in decreasing the amount of crime by the method that we use to handle criminals.

Yet these things are said to be scientific. We study them. And I think ordinary people with commonsense ideas are intimidated by this pseudoscience. A teacher who has some good idea of how to teach her children to read is forced by the school system to do it some other way -- or is even fooled by the school system into thinking that her method is not necessarily a good one. Or a parent of bad boys, after disciplining them in one way or another, feels guilty for the rest of her life because she didn't do "the right thing", according to the experts.

So we really ought to look into theories that don't work, and science that isn't science.

I think the educational and psychological studies I mentioned are examples of what I would like to call cargo cult science. In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they've arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas -- he's the controller -- and they wait for the airplanes to land. They're doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn't work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they're missing something essential, because the planes don't land.

Now it behooves me, of course, to tell you what they're missing. But it would be just about as difficult to explain to the South Sea islanders how they have to arrange things so that they get some wealth in their system. It is not something simple like telling them how to improve the shapes of the earphones. But there is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science. That is the idea that we all hope you have learned in studying science in school -- we never say explicitly what this is, but just hope that you catch on by all the examples of scientific investigation. It is interesting, therefore, to bring it out now and speak of it explicitly. It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty -- a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you're doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid -- not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you've eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked -- to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.

Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can -- if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong -- to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgement in one particular direction or another.

The easiest way to explain this idea is to contrast it, for example, with advertising. Last night I heard that Wesson oil doesn't soak through food. Well, that's true. It's not dishonest; but the thing I'm talking about is not just a matter of not being dishonest; it's a matter of scientific integrity, which is another level. The fact that should be added to that advertising statement is that no oils soak through food, if operated at a certain temperature. If operated at another temperature, they all will -- including Wesson oil. So it's the implication which has been conveyed, not the fact, which is true, and the difference is what we have to deal with.

We've learned from experience that the truth will come out. Other experimenters will repeat your experiment and find out whether you were wrong or right. Nature's phenomena will agree or they'll disagree with your theory. And, although you may gain some temporary fame and excitement, you will not gain a good reputation as a scientist if you haven't tried to be very careful in this kind of work. And it's this type of integrity, this kind of care not to fool yourself, that is missing to a large extent in much of the research in cargo cult science.

A great deal of their difficulty is, of course, the difficulty of the subject and the inapplicability of the scientific method to the subject. Nevertheless, it should be remarked that this is not the only difficulty. That's why the planes don't land -- but they don't land.

We have learned a lot from experience about how to handle some of the ways we fool ourselves. One example: Millikan measured the charge on an electron by an experiment with falling oil drops, and got an answer which we now know not to be quite right. It's a little bit off because he had the incorrect value for the viscosity of air. It's interesting to look at the history of measurements of the charge of an electron, after Millikan. If you plot them as a function of time, you find that one is a little bit bigger than Millikan's, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, and the next one's a little bit bigger than that, until finally they settle down to a number which is higher.

Why didn't they discover the new number was higher right away? It's a thing that scientists are ashamed of -- this history -- because it's apparent that people did things like this: when they got a number that was too high above Millikan's, they thought something must be wrong -- and they would look for and find a reason why something might be wrong. When they got a number close to Millikan's value they didn't look so hard. And so they eliminated the numbers that were too far off, and did other things like that. We've learned those tricks nowadays, and now we don't have that kind of a disease.

But this long history of learning how to not fool ourselves -- of having utter scientific integrity -- is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.

I would like to add something that's not essential to the science, but something I kind of believe, which is that you should not fool the layman when you're talking as a scientist. I am not trying to tell you what to do about cheating on your wife, or fooling your girlfriend, or something like that, when you're not trying to be a scientist, but just trying to be an ordinary human being. We'll leave those problems up to you and your rabbi. I'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that is not lying, but bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists, certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.

For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. "Well", I said, "there aren't any". He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind". I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing -- and if they don't support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

One example of the principle is this: If you've made up your mind to test a theory, or you want to explain some idea, you should always decide to publish it whichever way it comes out. If we only publish results of a certain kind, we can make the argument look good. We must publish BOTH kinds of results.

I say that's also important in giving certain types of government advice. Supposing a senator asked you for advice about whether drilling a hole should be done in his state; and you decide it would be better in some other state. If you don't publish such a result, it seems to me you're not giving scientific advice. You're being used. If your answer happens to come out in the direction the government or the politicians like, they can use it as an argument in their favor; if it comes out the other way, they don't publish at all. That's not giving scientific advice.

Other kinds of errors are more characteristic of poor science. When I was at Cornell, I often talked to the people in the psychology department. One of the students told me she wanted to do an experiment that went something like this -- it had been found by others that under certain circumstances, X, rats did something, A. She was curious as to whether, if she changed the circumstances to Y, they would still do A. So her proposal was to do the experiment under circumstances Y and see if they still did A.

I explained to her that it was necessary first to repeat in her laboratory the experiment of the other person -- to do it under condition X to see if she could also get result A, and then change to Y and see if A changed. Then she would know the the real difference was the thing she thought she had under control.

She was very delighted with this new idea, and went to her professor. And his reply was, no, you cannot do that, because the experiment has already been done and you would be wasting time. This was in about 1947 or so, and it seems to have been the general policy then to not try to repeat psychological experiments, but only to change the conditions and see what happened.

Nowadays, there's a certain danger of the same thing happening, even in the famous field of physics. I was shocked to hear of an experiment being done at the big accelerator at the National Accelerator Laboratory, where a person used deuterium. In order to compare his heavy hydrogen results to what might happen with light hydrogen, he had to use data from someone else's experiment on light hydrogen, which was done on a different apparatus. When asked why, he said it was because he couldn't get time on the program (because there's so little time and it's such expensive apparatus) to do the experiment with light hydrogen on this apparatus because there wouldn't be any new result. And so the men in charge of programs at NAL are so anxious for new results, in order to get more money to keep the thing going for public relations purposes, they are destroying -- possibly -- the value of the experiments themselves, which is the whole purpose of the thing. It is often hard for the experimenters there to complete their work as their scientific integrity demands.

All experiments in psychology are not of this type, however. For example, there have been many experiments running rats through all kinds of mazes, and so on -- with little clear result. But in 1937 a man named Young did a very interesting one. He had a long corridor with doors all along one side where the rats came in, and doors along the other side where the food was. He wanted to see if he could train the rats to go in at the third door down from wherever he started them off. No. The rats went immediately to the door where the food had been the time before.

The question was, how did the rats know, because the corridor was so beautifully built and so uniform, that this was the same door as before? Obviously there was something about the door that was different from the other doors. So he painted the doors very carefully, arranging the textures on the faces of the doors exactly the same. Still the rats could tell. Then he thought maybe the rats were smelling the food, so he used chemicals to change the smell after each run. Still the rats could tell. Then he realized the rats might be able to tell by seeing the lights and the arrangement in the laboratory like any commonsense person. So he covered the corridor, and still the rats could tell.

He finally found that they could tell by the way the floor sounded when they ran over it. And he could only fix that by putting his corridor in sand. So he covered one after another of all possible clues and finally was able to fool the rats so that they had to learn to go in the third door. If he relaxed any of his conditions, the rats could tell.

Now, from a scientific standpoint, that is an A-number-one experiment. That is the experiment that makes rat-running experiments sensible, because it uncovers that clues that the rat is really using -- not what you think it's using. And that is the experiment that tells exactly what conditions you have to use in order to be careful and control everything in an experiment with rat-running.

I looked up the subsequent history of this research. The next experiment, and the one after that, never referred to Mr. Young. They never used any of his criteria of putting the corridor on sand, or being very careful. They just went right on running the rats in the same old way, and paid no attention to the great discoveries of Mr. Young, and his papers are not referred to, because he didn't discover anything about the rats. In fact, he discovered all the things you have to do to discover something about rats. But not paying attention to experiments like that is a characteristic example of cargo cult science.

Another example is the ESP experiments of Mr. Rhine, and other people. As various people have made criticisms -- and they themselves have made criticisms of their own experiments -- they improve the techniques so that the effects are smaller, and smaller, and smaller until they gradually disappear. All the para-psychologists are looking for some experiment that can be repeated -- that you can do again and get the same effect -- statistically, even. They run a million rats -- no, it's people this time -- they do a lot of things are get a certain statistical effect. Next time they try it they don't get it any more. And now you find a man saying that is is an irrelevant demand to expect a repeatable experiment. This is science?

This man also speaks about a new institution, in a talk in which he was resigning as Director of the Institute of Parapsychology. And, in telling people what to do next, he says that one of things they have to do is be sure to only train students who have shown their ability to get PSI results to an acceptable extent -- not to waste their time on those ambitious and interested students who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a policy in teaching -- to teach students only how to get certain results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific integrity.

So I have just one wish for you -- the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.

the picture of everything

2005-07-01T12:06:00.000+05:30

this is definitely one of the best finds on the net...

http://www.thepictureofeverything.com/

The artist (Howard Hallis) has captured the whole of mankind in one painting. From the 'pyramids' to 'the rolling stones' to 'giant robot' to 'the batmobile' to 'pokemon' and beyond...

nothing short of a magnum opus ... do have a look.

a dedication

2005-06-28T16:23:00.000+05:30

this song by "divine comedy" inspired the name and hence the blog itself.

a real masterpiece on the Insignificantly Significant things in life...

the gin-soaked boy

I'm the darkness in the light
I'm the leftness in the right
I'm the rightness in the wrong
I'm the shortness in the long
I'm the goodness in the bad
I'm the saneness in the mad
I'm the sadness in the joy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the ghost in the machine
I'm the genius in the gene
I'm the beauty in the beast
I'm the sunset in the east
I'm the ruby in the dust
I'm the trust in the mistrust
I'm the Trojan horse in Troy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the tiger's empty cage
I'm the mystery's final page
I'm the stranger's lonely glance
I'm the hero's only chance
I'm the undiscovered land
I'm the single grain of sand
I'm the Christmas morning toy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the world you'll never see
I'm the slave you'll never free
I'm the truth you'll never know
I'm the place you'll never go
I'm the sound you'll never hear
I'm the course you'll never steer
I'm the will you'll not destroy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the half-truth in the lie
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the last roll of the die
I'm the old school in the tie
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm the Jeff Goldblum in "The Fly"

Well... Who am I?

The Buffalo Theory

2005-06-23T16:00:00.000+05:30

The "Buffalo Theory" of beer...

A herd of buffalo can move only as fast as the slowest buffalo. When the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first.

This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.

In much the same way the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, we all know, kills brain cells, but naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.

In this way regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine.

That is why you always feel smarter after a few beers.

Questions that have Confused Mankind

2005-06-22T11:46:00.000+05:30

Who was the first person to look at a cow and say, "I think I'll squeeze these dangly things here, and drink whatever comes out?"
Who was the first person to say "See that chicken there....I'm gonna eat the next thing that comes out of it's butt."
Why do toasters always have a setting that burns the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?
Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?
If Jimmy cracks corn and no one cares, why is there a song about him?
Can a hearse carrying a corpse drive in the carpool lane?
If the professor on Gilligan's Island can make a radio out of coconut, why can't he fix a hole in a boat?
Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don't point to their crotch when they
ask where the bathroom is?
Why does your OB-GYN leave the room when you get undressed if they are going to look up there anyway?
Why does Goofy stand erect while Pluto remains on all fours? They're both dogs!
What do you call male ballerinas?
Can blind people see their dreams? Do they dream??
If Wile E. Coyote had enough money to buy all that Acme crap,why didn't he just buy dinner?
If quizzes are quizzical, what are tests?
If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?
Isn't Disney World just a people trap operated by a mouse?
Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?
Do illiterate people get the full effect of Alphabet Soup?
Why do they call it an asteroid when it's outside the hemisphere, but call it a hemorrhoid when it's in your ass?
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog's face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride, he can't wait to stick his head out the window into the wind?
Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

"My Murphy's Laws" Series - Part 1

2005-06-17T12:38:00.000+05:30

Was just reading something on Murphy's laws... so thought of compiling my personal list of them.. derived from my own experiences of this wierdly beautiful world around me.

Series Part 1: Car / Driving Laws:

The later you run, the more is the chance of you hitting a red light.
The cleaner you wash your car, the bigger is the dropping that falls on it.
The spanner/nut will always fall towards the centre of the car, away from the reach of your hand.
The car keys are always in that pocket, the side of which has its hand the most occupied.
The more broke you are, the lesser is the fuel in the car.
An electric failure will occur exactly when you are talking to the dealer for trading the car.
The better you polish the car, bigger will be the scratch to appear on it in the following week.
There will be a slower vehicle blocking the very lane you switch to.
In all probability, the above said vehicle will be driven by an elderly person or a lady.
Whenever you attempt to find a parking slot near your destination, there won’t be any available, and you will have to come back to the farthest one.
And, there will always be an empty slot available nearest to your destination, whenever you play safe and park at the farther one.

war... woah!!!

2005-06-15T14:00:00.000+05:30

A classy satire of War as projected by deeds of our dear ol Bush-bhai

Please do take the effort of clicking on the thumbnail and reading it...

another one from lincoln

2005-06-15T12:01:00.000+05:30

Abraham Lincoln was always prepared to joke about himself-especially when it came to his physical appearance. By the standards of the day, he was indeed considered quite ungainly. He wrote to a friend:

One day . . . I got into a fit of musing in my room and stood resting my elbows on the bureau. Looking into the glass, it struck me what an ugly man I was. The fact grew on me and I made up my mind that I must be the ugliest man in the world. It so maddened me that I resolved, should I ever see an uglier, I would shoot him on sight. Not long after this, Andy [naming a lawyer present] came to town and the first time I saw him I said to myself: "There's the man." I went home, took down my gun, and prowled around the streets waiting for him. He soon came along. "Halt, Andy," said I, pointing the gun at him, "say your prayers, for I am going to shoot you." "Why, Mr. Lincoln, what's the matter? What have I done?" "Well, I made an oath that if I ever saw an uglier man than I am, I'd shoot him on the spot. You are uglier, surely; so make ready to die." "Mr. Lincoln, do you really think that I am uglier than you?" "Yes." "Well, Mr. Lincoln," said Andy deliberately and looking me squarely in the face, "if I am any uglier, fire away."

quotes of power

2005-06-10T16:24:00.000+05:30

”There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear.”
- David Mahoney

”Big thinking precedes great achievement”
- Wilfred Peterson

”The price of greatness is responsibility.”
- Winston Churchill

”Eagles don’t flock.”
- Ross Perot

”Beginning is half done.”
- Unknown

"Obstacles are things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
- E. Joseph Cossman

"Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius."
- George Bernard Shaw

Nothing else in the world... not all the armies... is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.
Bruce Lee

SMS chat wid God

2005-06-07T11:59:00.001+05:30

God: Hello. You called me.

I, Me, Myself: Called you? No, who is this?

God: This is God. I heard your prayers. So I thought I will chat with you.

IMM: Sure, I pray. Just makes me feel good. Actually, am busy now. In the midst of something, you know.

God: What are you busy with? Ants are busy, too.

IMM: Don't know. But I can't find free time. Life has become hectic. It's rush hour all the time.

God: Sure. Activity gets you busy. But productivity gets you results. Activity consumes time. Productivity frees it.

IMM: But I still can't figure it out. By the way, I was not expecting YOU to buzz me on instant messaging chat.

G: Well, I wanted to help you resolve your fight for time by giving you some clarity. I wanted to reach you through the medium you are comfortable with.

IMM: Tell me, why has life become so complicated?

G: Stop analyzing life. Just live it. Analysis is what makes it complicated.

IMM: Why are we then constantly unhappy?

G: Your today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday. You are worrying because the act of worrying has become a habit. That's why you are not happy.

IMM: But how can we not worry when there is so much uncertainty?

G: Uncertainty is inevitable, but worrying is optional.

IMM: But then, there is so much pain due to uncertainty.

God: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

IMM: If suffering is optional, why do good people always suffer?

God: Diamonds cannot be polished without friction. Gold cannot be purified without fire. Good people go through trials. With that experience their life becomes better, not bitter.

IMM: You mean to say such experience is useful?

God: Yes. Experience is a hard teacher, though. She gives the test first and the lessons afterwards.

IMM: But still, why should we go through such tests? Why can't we be free from problems?

God: Problems are Purposeful Roadblocks Offering Beneficial Lessons to Enhance Mental Strength. Inner strength comes from struggle and endurance, not when you are free from problems.

IMM: Frankly in the midst of so many problems, we don't know where we are heading.

God: If you look outside you will not know where you are heading. Look inside. Looking outside, you dream. Looking inside, you awaken. Eyes provide sight. Heart provides insight.

I Me Myself: Sometimes I ask, who am I, why am I here? I don't know the answers.

God: Seek not to find who you are, but to determine who you want to be.

IMM: Sometimes not succeeding fast seems to hurt more than moving in the right direction.

God: Success is relative, quantified by others. Satisfaction is absolute, quantified by you. Knowing the road ahead is more satisfying than knowing you rode ahead.

IMM: Sometimes I ask, who am I, why am I here? I don't know the answers.

God: Seek not to find who you are, but to determine who you want to be. Stop looking for a purpose as to why you are here. Create it. Life is not a process of discovery but a process of creation.

IMM: How can I get the best out of life?

God: Face your past without regret. Handle your present with confidence. Prepare for the future without fear.

IMM: Sometimes my prayers are not answered.

God: There are no unanswered prayers. At times the answer is NO.

IMM: Thank you for this wonderful chat. I'll try to be less fearful.

God: Keep the faith and drop the fear. Life is a mystery to solve, not a problem to resolve. Life is wonderful if you know how to live.

Ref: TOI - speaking tree

a famous letter

2005-05-31T11:47:00.000+05:30

I had read this for the first time when I was in Std VII. Did not make much of a sense to me then. But came across this again recently. Makes much more sense now though...

Abraham Lincoln's letter to his son's Headmaster

" He will have to learn, I know, that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero: that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader…. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend, it will take time, I know; but teach him if you can, that a dollar earned is of far more value than five found…. Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy winning. Steer him away from envy, if you can. Teach him the secret of quiet laughter. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to lick… Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books… but also give him quiet time to ponder over the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun and flowers on a green hillside.

In school, teach him it is far more honorable to fail than to cheat… Teach him to have faith in his own ideas, even if everyone tells him they are wrong… Teach him to be gentle with gentle people and tough with the tough. Try to give my son the strength not to follow the crown when everyone is getting onto the bandwagon, teach him to listen to all men, but teach him also to filter all he hears on a screen of truth and take only the good that comes through.

Teach him, if you can, how to laugh when he is sad… Teach him there is no shame in tears. Teach him to scoff at cynics and to beware of too much sweetness… Teach him to sell his brawn and brain to the highest bidders; but never to put a price tag on his heart and soul. Teach him to close his ears to a howling mob… and to stand and fight if he thinks he is right.

Treat him gently; but do not cuddle him because only the test of fire makes fine steel. Let him have the courage to be impatient… let him have the patience to be brave. Teach him to always have sublime faith in himself because then he will always have sublime faith in mankind.

This is a big order, but see what you can do… he is such a fine little fellow, my son."

me first blog...

2005-05-30T15:51:00.000+05:30

me not much of a philosopher.. more of a fun loving yet practical fool

some great quotes... not just to quote ... but to follow

Never follow anyone's footsteps... you wont leave any of yours behind.

- Anonymous - the greatest writer/poet ever.

Only two things are infinite, the space and the human stupidity; and I am not sure of the former

Not all things which can be counted, count; and not all things that count, can be counted.

- Einstein.