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Showing posts from 2009

Some quotes

"You choose your happiness and sorrow long before you experience them." - unknown "What is important is to try to develop insights and wisdom rather than mere knowledge, respect someone's character rather than his learning, and nurture men of character rather than mere talents." - Inazo Nitobe "People aren't what others decide they are, people are what they make themselves." - compilation from various sources "The more you learn the more you realize how much you don't know." - Albert Einstein "The media can't tell you what to think but it can tell you what to think about." - unknown "We are all atheists, some of us just believe in fewer gods than others. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen F. Roberts "Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think." - Benjamin Disraeli "It was

Tryst with Destiny

The speech was made to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India's independence, towards midnight on August 14, 1947. It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history. It is considered in modern India to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India. Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity. At the dawn of history In

Childhood Days

Childhood Days I made a big decision a little while ago. I don't remember what it was, which prob'ly goes to show That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential Even though it often might appear inconsequential. I must have been distracted when I left my home because Left or right I'm sure I went. (I wonder which it was!) Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection. For no reason I can think of, I've wandered far astray. And that is how I got to where I find myself today. Explorers are we, intrepid and bold, Out in the wild, amongst wonders untold. Equipped with our wits, a map, and a snack, We're searching for fun and we're on the right track! My mother has eyes on the back of her head! I don't quite believe it, but that's what she said. She explained that she'd been so uniquely endowed To catch me when I did Things Not Allowed. I think she must also have eyes on her rear. I've

A lesson in economics

A Quick Lesson in Economics ........ An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked; that no one would be poor, and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged, and everyone would receive the same grade; so no one would fail, and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged, and everyone got a B.. The students who studied hard were upset, and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less, and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too, so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, b

Head Hunting

Hindutva is embarrassed by Hinduness. A new generation of confident Indians has started to move beyond its logic of fear and hate. Will the BJP be able to seize this moment for creative reinvention? ASHIS NANDY with SHOMA CHAUDHURY The cascading crisis within the BJP since May 16 and their confused debate on the role Hindutva has played in their electoral defeat tells a fascinating story. It would be premature to read any of this as a signal of either the disintegration of the party or Hindutva, but one could safely say the idea of Hindutva has been defeated by Hindustan for the moment – it has been put on a backburner and challenged to reinvent itself. The BJP’s dependence on Hindutva as its defining characteristic was bound to turn problematic. Data suggest that at most about 10 percent of BJP supporters vote for the BJP on ideological grounds. The Hindutva project was constructed by tapping into and fostering fear and a psychology of siege among the Hindus—a sense of being a minorit

Eddie Vedder Society lyrics

Oh, it's a mystery to me We have a greed with which we have agreed And you think you have to want more than you need Until you have it all you won't be free Society, you're a crazy breed Hope you're not lonely without me... When you want more than you have You think you need... And when you think more than you want Your thoughts begin to bleed I think I need to find a bigger place Because when you have more than you think You need more space Society, you're a crazy breed Hope you're not lonely without me... Society, crazy indeed Hope you're not lonely without me... There's those thinking, more-or-less, less is more But if less is more, how you keeping score? Means for every point you make, your level drops Kinda like you're starting from the top You can't do that... Society, you're a crazy breed Hope you're not lonely without me... Society, crazy indeed Hope you're not lonely without me... Society, have mercy on me Hope you're not

Interview of Angel Pui, CEO of My Wedding Notes

Chris Wilkinson, CEO of HabiTECH interviews Angel Pui, CEO of My Wedding Notes Why did you become an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurs never plan to become one. We are simply not satisfied with the status quo in our everyday lives and we are arrogant enough to want to scratch the itch ourselves while thinking we are the best person to do it. What did you want to become as a child? I wanted to be an architect, to build small-scale models all day. I also wanted to be a race-car driver, a pilot, an olympics athlete, a video games or toy maker, and a fashion designer. What's your favorite part of a typical day? End of the day, because I know I've done a little more than yesterday, and just a bit closer to tomorrow. What skill would you most like to improve? Concentration. I might have ADHD. I can only spend 10 minutes on one task at a time. So I have a comprehensive system doing task 1, task, 2, task 3, then back to task 1 and task 2. 60% of the time, it works every time. (chuckle) What
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the final quarter being dropped into the world’s first commercial video game, for it was in May of 1979 that Galaxy Game was removed from the Coffee House café at Stanford’s Tresidder student union. I spent a good part of five years feeding coins into Galaxy’s wondrous console, and in return it taught me and several other Silicon Valley denizens valuable lessons that laid the groundwork for much of what we have done since. I met Galaxy Game in the Summer of 1974. My family had just moved to Palo Alto and I had no friends, so my brother and I rode our bikes around the Stanford campus looking for things to do. I was in 8th grade and the bowling alley got boring quickly, but next door, amidst students and lattes (also a novelty at the time) stood two large consoles, side by side, with odd-looking little black screens. Behind those screens sat a DEC PDP-11/20 powering a riveting game built on a simple concept: use a joystick and a couple of buttons

Pre-Launch Jitters and Then... Liftoff

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Contributing astronaut blogger Leroy Chiao continues to enlighten us about space travel, backtracking to the pre-launch period of nervous tension—and steak and eggs—then on to that unforgettable moment of explosive truth. Today, I was going to write about how to do something else in space. But, I changed my mind. Let's back up to the beginning of a mission. What's it like to go through a launch? How does it feel? Are you able to sleep the night before? Do you get scared? What do you eat before? Steak and eggs. Medium rare and over easy. This is what the first astronauts ate before launch and why not? I remember during one of my launch counts, the ladies were taking our pre-launch breakfast orders, going around the table. I was hearing things like, dry toast. A little yogurt. Cereal. You gotta be kidding me, what kind of pantywaists am I flying with? They got to me and I replied firmly and evenly, "Steak and eggs, medium rare and over easy." Everyone looked at me funny

Jim Carrey

My favorite Jim quote is: "It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?"-Jim Carrey LIFE I don't think anybody should go through life without a team of psychologists. I have been through times when I'm literally squatting in the living room, having one of those open-throated cries, where you're crying all the way to your butthole. I always believed I would come out of it, though. I don't make it in regular channels, and that's okay for me. My life is not unlike Truman's. I can't go anywhere. Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity. I don't think anybody is interesting until they've had the shit kicked out of them. The pain is there for a reason. A lot of times when I was in those depressions, I also had the thing going through my head that this is what I've asked for. I've prayed to God that I would

The Big Bang Theory:Part3

Season 1, Episode 10 (The Loobenfeld Decay) Leonard: How long is [Toby/Leo] going to stay here? Sheldon: He's a homeless drug addict, Leonard. Where's he going to go? Boy, you have a lot to learn about lying. Sheldon: (Knocking on Penny's door early in the morning). Penny, Penny, Penny! (Penny opens the door). Sheldon: Good morning. Penny: Do you have any idea what time it is? Sheldon: Of course I do, my watch is linked to the atomic clock in Boulder, Colorado. It's accurate to one-tenth of a second, but as I'm saying this it occurs to me once again your question may have been rhetorical. Sheldon: Artificial intelligences do not have teen fetishes. Season 1, Episode 11 (The Pancake Batter Anomaly) Sheldon: We have no idea what pathogen Typhoid Penny’s introduced into our environment. And having never been to Nebraska I’m relatively certain that I have no Corn Husking antibodies. Sheldon: Obviously you're not well-suited for three-dimensional chess. Perhaps thr

The Big Bang Theory:Part2

Season 1, Episode 3 (The Fuzzy Boots Corollary) Sheldon: (to Leonard, who has decided to give up on Penny) Well, at least now you can retrieve the black box from the twisted, smoldering wreckage that was once your fantasy of dating her and analyze the data so you don%u2019t crash into Geek Mountain again. Sheldon: I think that you [Leonard] have as much of a chance of having a sexual relationship with Penny as the Hubble telescope does of discovering at the center of every black hole is a little man with a flashlight searching for a circuit breaker. Sheldon: There's always a chance that alcohol and poor judgment on her part may lead to a wonderful evening. Sheldon: I don't come over to your house changing things on your boards. Leslie: That's because I don't have mistakes on my boards. Sheldon: That's...That's... Leslie: When you think up an adjective text me. Sheldon: You have about as much chance with her as the Hubble Telescope does of finding in the middle o

The Big Bang Theory:Part1

The Big Bang Theory is an American situation comedy created and executive produced by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady, which premiered on CBS on September 24, 2007. It concerns two male Caltech prodigies in their twenties, one an experimental physicist (Leonard) and the other a theoretical physicist (Sheldon), who live across the hall from an attractive blonde waitress with show-biz aspirations (Penny). Leonard and Sheldon's geekiness and intellect are contrasted with Penny's social skills and common sense for comedic effect. Two equally geeky friends of theirs, Howard and Rajesh, are also main characters. Season 1, Episode 1 (Pilot) Sheldon: I don't know what your odds are in the world as a whole but as far as the population of this car goes you're a veritable mack daddy. Penny: I’m a Sagittarius, which probably tells you way more than you need to know. Sheldon: Yes, it tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun’s apparent position relative to

The Kranz Dictum

Response to Apollo I Launch Pad Fire Eugene F. Kranz called a meeting of his branch and flight control team on the Monday morning following the Apollo 1 disaster that killed Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Kranz made the following address to the gathering (The Kranz Dictum), in which his expression of values and admonishments for future spaceflight are his legacy to NASA: "Spaceflight will never tolerate carelessness, incapacity, and neglect. Somewhere, somehow, we screwed up. It could have been in design, build, or test. Whatever it was, we should have caught it. We were too gung ho about the schedule and we locked out all of the problems we saw each day in our work. Every element of the program was in trouble and so were we. The simulators were not working, Mission Control was behind in virtually every area, and the flight and test procedures changed daily. Nothing we did had any shelf life. Not one of us stood up and said, 'Dammit, stop!' I don't know what

For the greater good of God

With elections around the corner in India Its painful to see how shamelessly politicians are playing a religion based card and how the majority of the educated people are falling for it.Reminds me of Iron Maiden's 'For the greater good of God' song.Here are the lyrics: Are you a man of peace Or man of holy war Too many sides to you Don't know which anymore So many full of life But also filled with pain Don't know just how many Will live to breathe again A life that's made to breath destruction or defense A mind that's vain corruption bad or good intent A wolf in sheep's clothing Or saintly or sinner Or some that would believe A holy war winner They fire off many shots and many parting blows Their actions beyond a reasoning only god would know And as he lies in heaven or it could be in hell I feel he's somewhere here or looking from below But I don't know, I don't know Please tell me now what life is Please tell me now what love is Well tell m

If the US is bad, its rivals are worse

SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR As the world sinks into the worst recession since the 1930s, leaders of the top 20 countries are meeting in Britain to discuss major reforms of the world economic system. There is a consensus that the existing system has failed massively, especially in the US. The five biggest investment banks in the world (Lehman Brothers et al) have vanished in the financial carnage. The two biggest mortgage companies in the world, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, are under government overlordship. The biggest insurance company in the world, AIG, is on government life support. The biggest bank in the world, Citibank, has survived only with massive government help. General Motors, the biggest auto company in the world, is also on life support. The greatest icons of US capitalism are on crutches. But hold the dirges. The most vocal critics of US capitalism are sinking too. Look at Latin American socialist regimes (Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador), Russia and Iran. For all

Ode to the Nice Guys

This rant was written for the Wharton Undergraduate Journal This is a tribute to the nice guys. The nice guys that finish last, that never become more than friends, that endure hours of whining and bitching about what assholes guys are, while disproving the very point. This is dedicated to those guys who always provide a shoulder to lean on but restrain themselves to tentative hugs, those guys who hold open doors and give reassuring pats on the back and sit patiently outside the changing room at department stores. This is in honor of the guys that obligingly reiterate how cute/beautiful/smart/funny/sexy their female friends are at the appropriate moment, because they know most girls need that litany of support. This is in honor of the guys with open minds, with laid-back attitudes, with honest concern. This is in honor of the guys who respect a girl’s every facet, from her privacy to her theology to her clothing style. This is for the guys who escort their drunk, bewildered female frie

Of thank you and sorry

Gratitude and apology are emotional yardsticks of human character. We must not strip them of sincerity, says Harsh Kabra Thank you and sorry are perhaps the first words we learn. And they stay with us right through our lives as yardsticks of our civility. But when was the last time we said “thank you” or “sorry” without meaning to simply offload our burden of obligation or guilt? Indeed, these words no longer express what they are supposed to. Instead, they are used flippantly, thrown around without care, often reduced to an easy way of getting off the hook and evading meaningful action. They may well be the most used words in times of political correctness. But they are clearly the most abused as well. The emotions of gratitude and apology are vital to the chain of human reciprocity. But in stripping them of sincerity, we also seem to be closing the doors on their benefits for us. In almost all religious traditions, gratitude is a manifestation of virtuous character. “Gratitud