Random Musings

Song of the year .. 2011!!

"Most Relationships fail not because of the absence of love.. Love is always present. Its just that, One loves too much, And the other loves too many"

Now your address is relative!!!!

"Maturity: Be able to stick with a job until it is finished. Be able to bear an injustice without having to get even. Be able to carry money without spending it. Do your duty without being supervised." Ann Landers

Tim O'Reilly Discusses Collective Intelligence from The Doctor's Channel on Vimeo .

6 years: Mom knows everything ! 8 years: Mom knows alot ! 12 years: Mom really doesn't know everything ! 14 years: Mom knows nothing ! 16 years: Mom, what mom ! 18 years: Mom is outdated ! 25 years: Maybe Mom knows! 35 years: Before deciding, let's ask Mom! 45 years: I wonder what Mom thinks! 75 years: I wish. Mom was here to ask

Some good parenting tips .. 1. THREATEN TO LEAVE YOUR KIDS BEHIND 2: "Don't lie to your child." 3. IGNORE YOUR OWN BAD BEHAVIOR 4. ASSUME THAT WHAT WORKED FOR YOUR FIRST -- OR FOR YOU -- WILL WORK FOR YOUR SECOND :-) 5. HAVE A PANIC ATTACK BECAUSE YOUR CHILD BROKE A RULE ( Oh yeah!!! ) 6. THINK YOUR BABY SHOULDN'T BE BABIED 7. PUNISH OR SCOLD YOUR CHILD WHEN SHE ACTS OUT, HITS, OR THROWS THINGS 8. TRY TO BE YOUR CHILD'S FRIEND RATHER THAN HIS PARENT 9. FILL YOUR CUPBOARDS WITH JUNK FOOD AND SKIP FAMILY MEALS 10. DON'T WALK; DRIVE EVERYWHERE 11. THINK YOU BEAR SOLE RESPONSIBILITY -- OR NO RESPONSIBILITY -- FOR YOUR CHILD'S DEVELOPMENT 12. ASSUME THERE IS ONE WAY TO BE A GOOD PARENT

http://www.economist.com/node/21531530

" Understand and accept that you will make mistakes. The point is to find them early, before they make it into production. Fortunately, except for the few of us developing rocket guidance software at JPL, mistakes are rarely fatal in our industry, so we can, and should, learn, laugh, and move on." " No matter how much "karate" you know, someone else will always know more. Such an individual can teach you some new moves if you ask. Seek and accept input from others, especially when you think it's not needed." "Treat people who know less than you with respect, deference, and patience. Nontechnical people who deal with developers on a regular basis almost universally hold the opinion that we are prima donnas at best and crybabies at worst. Don't reinforce this stereotype with anger and impatience." " The only true authority stems from knowledge, not from position. Knowledge engenders authority, and authority engenders respect -- so...

Now Paul is someone worth emulating.... http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomiogeron/2011/08/25/despite-y-combinator-growth-paul-graham-still-coding/

“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.” - Steve Jobs http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/08/24/steve-jobss-best-quotes/

"If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams

What Is Intelligence, Anyway? By Isaac Asimov What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn't mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP - kitchen police - as my highest duty.) All my life I've been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I'm highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don't such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests - people with intellectual bents similar to mine? For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I alw...

This would be something to watch in our lifetimes of how things turn...

How social media is changing our lives.

that’s how ‘Alexander The Great’ (Agile) kicked Darius’s (Waterfall) butt. And this victory against such great odds can teach us some useful lessons about how to improve the delivery of our software development projects. 1. Avoid committing too early — especially when you don’t have all the information you need. You’ll make better decisions if you wait till the last possible moment . 2. Collecting requirements upfront — and assuming they will never change over the duration of the software development project — can cost you dearly in terms of delayed delivery times, additional development costs and software that has little or no value to your customer. 3. It’s better to develop software incrementally . Because with each iteration we learn more. And the more you learn, the better you get. 4. Empowered team members make better technical decisions, are more productive and develop higher quality software. 5. Face to face communications are much more effective than documentation at el...

A very heartning story.... " My social network helped diagnose a rare disease that our doctors initially missed."

" Before my son arrived and when he was an infant, I was pretty adamant about no TV or videos or video games before age 2 and very limited exposure after that. He's now almost 3 and he still doesn't watch TV, but does watch videos in small doses and play some interactive games on our iPAD. I have to say that when we were traveling, a well-timed iPAD app that could entertain our son for a few minutes was a godsend that headed off tantrums or crying in restaurants and other public places when he got antsy. So, I've relaxed my rules about media consumption. I've been amazed at how quickly and intuitively even very young toddlers pick up the touch screen manipulation. At around 15-18 mos. our son enjoyed flipping through photos on the iPAD. For our next trip in July (for which we will NOT be flying first class!) I may need to download a couple more apps!" - A parent.... http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/rememberwhentheyusedtoplaywithyourcarkeys/

TOP TEN MYTHS ABOUT INTROVERTS Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk . This is not true. Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say. They hate small talk. Get an introvert talking about something they are interested in, and they won’t shut up for days. Myth #2 – Introverts are shy. Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting. If you want to talk to an Introvert, just start talking. Don’t worry about being polite. Myth #3 – Introverts are rude . Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest. Unfortunately, this is not acceptable in most settings, so Introverts can feel a lot of pressure to fit in, which they find exhausting. Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people . On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. Th...

Q: What is the chemical that helps us in building instant connections or that leads us to falling in love...?? Ans: Oxytocin

What is it like growing up as son of Warren Buffet listen !!!

Internalize this advice..... to stay relevant in any sphere... Side Projects IMPORTANCE OF SIDE PROJECTS Side projects are important for a few reasons. Programming is a creative process. Side projects allow programming without deadlines or restraints. Side projects allow programming in an exploratory way. EXPLORE NEW TECHNOLOGIES Every day there are more and more bleeding edge technologies coming out. A side project is a great place to try them out. There’s no reason to worry about bugs or performance issues because it’s just a side project. You’re not depending on the project to pay your bills. It’s ok if the website crashes. CREATING FROM SCRATCH Most jobs I’ve had so far were mostly maintenance work. Adding new features, fixing bugs, troubleshooting performance problems, refactoring existing code. Though I’ve built more than a few applications from scratch, it only takes me a couple months to lay the foundation, and then I’m in maintenance mode again. Side projects require creating ...

Why people remain poor..."Isolation"...interesting perspective... "If the world really is held together by people like Lois Weisberg, in other words, how poor you are can be defined quite simply as how far you have to go to get to someone like her. Wendy Willrich and Helen Doria and all the countless other people in Lois’s circle needed to make only one phone call. They are well-off. The dropout wouldn’t even know where to start. That’s why he’s poor. Poverty is not deprivation. It is isolation." "We live in an age where with a solid Internet connection and someone to guide you through the process of self-education (admittedly something many people don’t have) you can learn just about anything. Certainly enough to qualify for some of society’s highest-paid positions. But unfortunately that’s not enough. Because despite the fact that it’s easier than ever to learn the things that will qualify you for a well-paid position in the world, it’s not easier (perhaps ev...

'Jugaad" a very Indian word for frugal innovation. "the essence of which is captured by the Jugaad mindset, a Hindi word that in a nutshell refers to making do with what one has to solve one’s problems (also implying a certain degree of improvisation). In a business context it means bringing innovative products to market despite limited resources – if not thanks to limited resources, since it is the financial constraints of producers or customers (or both) that drive the innovation in the first place. Frugal innovation results in great value: no-frills, good quality, functional products that are also affordable to the customer with modest means. " Read more here of one person's experience

Interesting idea to make bribe's legal by Kaushik Basu.. Some titbits "An Indian website, ipaidabribe.com, set up last summer by anti-corruption activists, reveals just how grasping officials can be. It has documented over 8,500 instances of bribery adding up to nearly 375m rupees ($8.4m) in backhanders. These include 100 rupees to get a policeman to register a complaint about a stolen mobile phone and 500 rupees for a clerk to hand over a marriage certificate. The amounts are much larger to facilitate income-tax refunds, where the standard “charge” is 10%; sums between 5,000 and 50,000 rupees change hands" " The category of payments he would like to legalise are “harassment bribes”, made by a person to get things to which he is legally entitled. In such cases, Mr Basu argues, the giver should be granted immunity from prosecution and a proven complaint should result not only in punishment for the corrupt official but also in a “refund” for the bribe-giver. These step...

J.K. Rowling Speaks at Harvard Commencement from Harvard Magazine on Vimeo .

If you are student of economics check out this one... Keynes vs Hayek!!

Girls from south India are going to be in "demand" soon in the marriage market !!!

Read a great post on the importance of now.. and could not stop copying verbatim *********************** This week Mr.Brown focused on "Do it Now ". People who have dreams are seekers of informtation to help them unlock a better life for themselves. People that Do It Now have 4 common characteristics. 1. Give it your ALL. Have a mindset of being involved and engaged in life. Have a mindset of living a life of contribution and achievement. Don't wait on the sidelines for the perfect time. The time is now to get engaged into your passion and calling. Have energy, humor, fun, and thought behind your "ALL". 2. Reinvent yourself. Use your talents in many different ways. If you tired, stressed and disengaged in your current focus, stop and reinvent yoursellf. Successful people reinvent themselves several times in their lives. Make a committment and have the courage to reinvent yourself. Add life to your years rather than years to your life. 3. Expand your Relations...

Manage these!! ....... 5 views of identity... 1) Authentication : Do you have permission?* 2) Representation : Who are you? 3) Communication : How do I reach you? 4) Personalization : What do you prefer? 5) Reputation : How do others regard you? http://evhead.com/2011/04/five-easy-pieces-of-online-identity.html

An interesting read of what it takes to become a "genius" ... simple practice and hard work!! and this picture an ability to make the right "connections" Novice Mind Expert Mind Genius Mind Some interesting quotes.. "Success doesn't have much to do with talent. It's almost always a product of hard work and the culture of which we live our lives." - Malcolm Gladwell "Perspective is the key to genius." " A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. " Galileo's words -- "All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." Insights are often so simple, so obviously true once you see them. But we are often blinded by our fixations, our hubris , our limited frames of reference -- our narrow perspectives -- which prevent us from seeing" " You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in ...

"When God created the ass he gave him a thick skin" - Albert Einstei n

Deliberate practice and GRIT are what matters in the end in any endaveour!!.. More on grit from a nice post . "Why were some kids better at drilling themselves with note cards? What explained this variation in hours devoted to deliberate practice? After analyzing the data, Duckworth discovered the importance of a psychological trait known as grit. In previous papers, Duckworth has demonstrated that grit can be reliably measured with a short survey that measures consistency of passions (e.g., ‘‘I have been obsessed with a certain idea or project for a short time but later lost interest’’) and consistency of effort (e.g., ‘‘Setbacks don’t discourage me’’) over time using a 5-point scale. Not surprisingly, those with grit are more single-minded about their goals – they tend to get obsessed with certain activities – and also more likely to persist in the face of struggle and failure. Woody Allen famously declared that “Eighty percent of success is showing up”. Grit is what allows you...

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/13/business/13hire.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all?src=tptw

Another true Black Swan event.

A father passing by his teenage daughter's bedroom was astonished to see the bed was nicely made and everything was neat and tidy. Then he saw an envelope propped up prominently on the centre of the pillow. It was addressed "Dad". With the worst premonition, he opened the envelope and read the letter with trembling hands:- Dear Dad, It is with great regret and sorrow that I'm writing you, but I'm leaving home. I had to elope with my new boyfriend Randy because I wanted to avoid a scene with Mom and you. I've been finding real passion with Randy and he is so nice to me. I know when you meet him you'll like him too - even with all his piercing, tattoos, and motorcycle clothes. But it's not only the passion Dad, I'm pregnant and Randy said that he wants me to have the kid and that we can be very happy together. Even though Randy is much older than me (anyway, 42 isn't so old these days is it?), and has no money, really these things shouldn't s...

"Broken gets fixed but shitty lasts forever" - Unknown This quote goes out to all those building something :-)

In celebration of valentine day here is a mathematician's version of love :-) http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x^2%2B(y-sqrt(x^2))^2%3D1

This post seems to have some effect on me.. Read on... . Schools of thoughts here.. It seems there are two main schools of thought about sleep patterns. One is that you should go to bed and get up at the same times every day. It’s like having an alarm clock on both ends — you try to sleep the same hours each night. This seems practical for living in modern society. We need predictability in our schedules. And we need to ensure adequate rest. The second school says you should listen to your body’s needs and go to bed when you’re tired and get up when you naturally wake up. This approach is rooted in biology. Our bodies should know how much rest we need, so we should listen to them. And both have issues.... "If you sleep set hours, you’ll sometimes go to bed when you aren’t sleepy enough. If it’s taking you more than five minutes to fall asleep each night, you aren’t sleepy enough. You’re wasting time lying in bed awake and not being asleep. Another problem is that you’re assuming y...

"Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm." Winston Churchill

Great chart and if want to read more of the verbose check this out.

"Under severe stress, I did 3 things. Force calm, do only highest priority things, avoid all distractions." Sullenberger on Leadership

Nice tips on being lucky... I think there are three easy techniques that can help to maximise good fortune: Unlucky people often fail to follow their intuition when making a choice, whereas lucky people tend to respect hunches. Lucky people are interested in how they both think and feel about the various options, rather than simply looking at the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them because gut feelings act as an alarm bell - a reason to consider a decision carefully. Unlucky people tend to be creatures of routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same types of people at parties. In contrast, many lucky people try to introduce variety into their lives. For example, one person described how he thought of a colour before arriving at a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that colour. This kind of behaviour boosts the likelihood of chance opportunities by introducing variety. Lucky people tend to see the positive side of ...

Leaders in every sphere must be co-opt these 5 shifts... 1. The first shift stems from a monumental transition in the power balance between seller and buyer: to management's astonishment, the buyer is now in the driver’s seat. As a result, the firm’s goal has to shift to one of delighting clients : i.e. a shift from inside-out (“You take what we make”) to outside-in (“We seek to understand your problems and will surprise you by solving them”). 2. The second shift stems from the first transition, as well as the epochal transition from semi-skilled labor to knowledge work. Again to management's astonishment, traditional hierarchy suddenly doesn’t work anymore. The role of the manager has to shift from being a controller to an enabler , so as to liberate the energies and talents of those doing the work and remove impediments that are getting in the way of work. To support and sustain those two shifts, three other shifts are necessary: 3. The mode of coordina...

World is full of creative things... Check this out and be suprised!!!

Seen a number of prediction lists this seems the most promising... JWT: 100 Things to Watch in 2011 View more presentations from JWTIntelligence .