Random thoughts on recent events

The ongoing attacks in Bombay got me unsettled. Below is a top 10 listcountries by population categorized for the four major world religions.As you go through the list, ask yourself two questions -

1. Do you see that country as an aggressor or a victim?
   
2. Do you consider that country as having bright future or goingdownhill?
   

Why is that?

Hindu	Christian	Islam	Jewish
Nepal	USA	Indonesia	USA
India	Brazil	Pakistan	Israel
Mauritius	Mexico	India	Russia
Guyana	Russia	Bangladesh	France
Fiji	China	Turkey	Argentina
Suriname	Germany	Iran	Canada
Bhutan	Philippines	Egypt	United Kingdom
Trinidad and Tobago	United Kingdom	Nigeria	Brazil
Sri Lanka	Italy	China	Germany
Bangladesh	France	Algeria	Ukraine

I was trying to look for patterns across these countries. I did not trytoo hard and gave up after a while but during the process I ended up atthe "human development index". According to Wikipedia,apart from Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh all the other countries listedin the top 10 Hindu list below, have a higher HDI score than India. Iwas born and raised smack dab in the heart of Indian middle class andnever would have guessed that the UN thinks Guyana is a better placefor me to be born than India. Then again no one person can representthe country of a billion people. Just something for me to keep in mindbefore I try to pretend like I understand what motivates people to doseemingly barbarous acts.



Sources:

• http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_hindu.html
• http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_christian.html
• http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_islam.html
• http://www.adherents.com/largecom/com_judaism.html
• http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_jew_pop_lar_jew_pop_top_50_cou_by_jew_pop_jew-populations-top-50-countries-jews
• http://www.mapsofworld.com/world-top-ten/world-top-ten-countries-with-largest-muslim-populations-map.html

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Why cannot I give a business presentation like this?

I don't think it is gimmicky, I actually believe it is powerful!

 

 

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Can I just say I envy the ability to tell stories this powerfully

I am a huge fan of this dude - Jason Pollan. Source: http://bit.ly/Lcee

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thanks to Kim for the link -> http://bit.ly/tJ5k

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Can you tell the difference between failure and learning?

I came up with the following.

Failure is when a defibrillator stops working, failure is when your car engine breaks down in the middle of your long road trip, failure is when your insurance company declares chapter 11 right after you file for flood damage claims on your house.

Learning when a entrepreneur starts a company that does not make it, learning is when a young woman goes from competing for her college at the NCAA level to qualifying for the Olympics and ends up 4th in the race, learning is when you scrape your way through graduate school, work hard on a degree that you are passionate about and realize that the job market has tanked on your just as your graduate.

They might look very similar on first glance but they are worlds apart. Don't listen to others when they call your lessons failures, they just might be envying your courage to learn :-)

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Think Long, Act Short

I cameacross this snippet in a cnn.com report. This is taking a page right out of thesuccessful Obama grass roots campaign machine. How different the message soundswhen you go from

“Pleaseprepare yourself to give 2300$ for candidate X in 2012” to “Pleaseset aside 2.85$/day so you can fully support the candidate you want in 2012”. Looks like the 2008 elections are already starting to change how the game isplayed.

 

Supporters behind SaveforMike.com have even committed tosetting aside $2.85 a day so that if Huckabee decides to run, they'll havesaved up enough by the time of his announcement to contribute the maximum$2,300 to his campaign. And if not, they'll "just use the

savings to splurge on something nice to lessen ourdisappointment," according to the group's Web site.

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College Stops Giving Students New Email Accounts: Start Of New Trend?

Small decisions lead to big changes

 

 

College Stops Giving Students New Email Accounts: Start Of New Trend?

via ReadWriteWeb by Sarah Perez on 11/20/08

Officials at Boston College have made what may be a momentous decision: they've stopped doling out new email accounts to incoming students. The officials realized that the students already had established digital identities by the time they entered college, so the new email addresses were just not being utilized. The college will offer forwarding services instead.

Sponsor

Starting next year, freshman enrolled at Boston College won't be given an actual email account complete with login and inbox, just an email address. This address, in the format of johnsmith@bc.edu will simply forward mail to the student's already established inbox, be it Gmail, Windows Live Mail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, or whatever else they may be using.

The college reached this decision after first looking into outsourcing their email to the cloud. They considered offering from both Google and Microsoft, but eventually decided against both in lieu of the new forwarding option.

A Smart Decision

While the Boston College decision may have been made for cost-saving reasons more than anything, we can easily imagine this as being the start of a new trend.

Can you even imagine a U.S. college student who didn't have an email address of their own by the time they were a freshman? It's practically unheard of. Today's students are digital natives who have been immersed in technology from the day they were born. It simply doesn't make sense to give them yet another account to manage when they enter college.

Some Challenges

By going this route, there are still some challenges to overcome, though. For example, a student who changes their email carrier will probably forget to alert the institution to the change and could then miss out on important messages from the university pertaining to their courses, scholarship, and disciplinary and/or safety information.

However, it can easily be argued that a change of (email) address is a student's responsibility to handle, not the institution's. If a student changed their address or phone number, would they not alert the affected parties? The same should hold true for email. And if the end result is more efficient and effective communication with the student body as a whole, the outliers who didn't follow through on managing their email transition are ultimately the ones at fault for any missed messages.

The only danger in drawing a hard line like that would be if the college or university was in the habit of sending out critical safety information utilizing the students' email addresses. If that was the institution's main way of communicating this urgent info, they may want to devise another solution. Urgent messages should ideally be sent out using multiple pathways: email, IM, text messages, and, these days, Twitter alerts would also be a valuable tool to use, too. In fact, Omnilert's e2Campus emergency notification system  already integrates with Twitter and Facebook as well as email, SMS, and RSS.

In the end, we think the decision Boston College made could easily be the start of a new trend, especially for smaller institutions looking to reduce I.T. infrastructure and support costs. We're sure the students like it, too.

Discuss

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Hear Hear - By a VC on VC's

TheFunded - Canarie

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: lp investing)

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Seriously it is that easy?

 

Has the US Treasury not seen any de-motivationalposters? The treasury department has a 6 page application on their website (http://bit.ly/iqKZ) to help YOU claim a piece ofthe 700 Billion dollars in loan waiting to be doled out. I am excited about howsimple the application is but seriously is this the right problem for this?

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Not to gloat or anything

Below is an excerpt from a post by Greg Mankiw -> http://bit.ly/2tVhEU

******************************************************************************************

Here (via Mark Perry, posted two days ago) areGRE scores by field. Economists rank number 4. Political scientists are number17, and sociologists are number 23.

In last place is public administration.

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My encounter with an author

On a recent flight to the east coast, I sat across theaisle from a mom with two adorable girls. The girls used fluent French, Englishand I found out later Chinese during the course of the 3hr flight. When the momwas replaced by the dad (he wanted to give the mom a breakJ) I leanedover and discovered that their daughters spoke 4 languages.

 

I had tremendous fun getting to know this family, thehusband is American, the wife is French and they have Chinese girls who speak 4languages. I think that is such a vivid picture of how the world is differentin 2008 than it was in 1958.

 

It turns out that the gentleman is a very good authorwho has written NYTimes bestsellers. His recent book can be found here -> http://bit.ly/A8Zh8  I am going to check it out J

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I will say these things just this once

(because I typically keep this blog focussed on small-ideas, customerservice observations, entrepreneurship, communication techniques andstuff that make mego hrmm..)

• I am a brown skinned Indian born in India and raised a Hindu(Brahmin).
• I am now a passionate Christian (call me a jesus freak) marriedto a red haired Texas beauty. She is gorgeous for sure (hi babe) but Imarried her because she groks being a "jesus freak".
• We are a mixed race couple embracing the fact that we arechallenging stereotypes in our own small ways. We don't set out tochallenge stereotypes but we love hurling a rock at them when weencounter them as part of life *fun*.
• Theocracy is not democracy!!
• Jesus looked more like me and to be precise very much like AbdulHussein Ahmed living in Palestine rather than John Adam Smith in Ohio(GASP! you blaspheme) No I do not. Seriously read your bible and goresearch how people born in Nazareth looked 2000 years ago.
• Jesus loves Barack Obama as much as he loves George W Bush  orBush Sr or even Ronald Reagan. Yup I did come right out and say it.
  
• Jesus never was, never is and never will be for one party overanother.
  
• If you are fighting based on convictions arising from the bible,I will pray with you and do keep up the good fight. But if you thinkbeing a Christian means embracing everything Republican and blindlyopposing everything Democrat. Seriously wake up and smell the coffeeand oh read your bible while you are at it.
  

This should go without saying but unfortunately it has to be said. Thisdoes not mean I am pro-abortion, pro gay marriage or a prosperitygospel merchant. If you want to know my views on these things, ping meand buy me coffee and we can talk.

I am done. I feel clean now.
(shalom)

Footnote:
1. I do not know any Abdul Hussein Ahmed's, I am just making a point.If that annoys you :) good bye.
2. I do not know a John Adam Smith in Ohio either.

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Customer Service FAIL!!!

US Airways. I am currently in transit fromProvidence to Austin. I boarded a US Airways flight in Providence.Apparently they don't offer even water anymore on the flight. It costs2$ for a bottle of water. Sure I think it is outrageous but myobjection is not that it costs 2$. I am appalled by the fact that theyDO NOT ADVERTISE this. I did not have any change in my wallet and I hadto stay thirsty for the entire flight. How ridiculous is that! It is not that hard, get on your PA system and advise people to bringtheir own bottle of water if they don't want to buy one on the plane. Ipromise to make sure everybody I know stay away from US Airways asmuch as possible. Yes, I am that annoyed!

The Charlotte airport. Roomy, spacious, lots ofgarden furniture scattered around to help you stay productive betweenflights.

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powerhouse families

Cool! This family inspired two of my all time favorite TV characters J http://bit.ly/1PEAq1

Emanuel was not the only brother with a drive to succeed. Ezekiel, the eldest, became an oncologist, joined the faculty at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard University, and is now a prominent medical ethicist at the National Institutes of Health . Ari went to Hollywood and has become an enormously wealthy agent, not to mention the inspiration for the bombastic Ari Gold character on HBO's "Entourage." (Emanuel, too, partly inspired a TV character: Josh Lyman on "The West Wing.")

Jon Stewart is ridiculously good - sometimes

Where are you on the social networking ladder?

 

I spend time along the Creators/Critics/Collectors tiersJ

 

Complete R/W web article here -> http://bit.ly/1P9QHQ

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Revenue is over rated

My wife sent me a link to this awesome story. It is the story of anentrepreneur who decided to stop servicing an account that generated48% of his annual revenue. Now why would he do that? Because 2 yearslater he saw a 11% increase in profits. Profits mind you not revenue."I can do half the business, make twice the money, and have a tenth ofthe headaches," he says.
This is not for everyone but for the one who can define an end goalaround profits this is a very good place to be. Congratulations JimChristy!

Link - http://bit.ly/2qxGM4

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Many hands make valuable work

At least that is what this article claims.  ->http://bit.ly/Vw8gX

It values the linux kernel at 1.4 billion dollars. Thecalculation is based on a 200$/loc valuation and it calculates that the latest Linuxkernel has 7million lines of code.

Fedora 9 (a linux distribution) is valued at 10billion dollars J based on a 50$/loc cost for 200million lines ofcode.

 

Note: they wave their hand at the details of how theyarrived at these $$ figures.

Not sure why the $/loc is 4x more for the kernel thanfor Fedora (OS code is 4x more expensive than application code)?

 

Hrmm… impressive, is this accurate? Let us see

Yahoo – Market Cap – 17B which would implythat Yahoo has 170 million lines of code based on 100$/loc (in between Fedora9and Linux?)

Goog – Market Cap – 112B which would implythat Google has 745 million lines of code based on 150$/loc.

( this is 310,667 lines of code per day, every day for10 years  [745mill/10 = 74560000 /48 = 1553334/5=316666])

MSFT – Market Cap – 197B which would implythat Microsoft has 985million lines of code based on 200$/loc

(this is 181,159 lines of code per day, every day for23 years  [1B/23/48/5]) which would mean that google has been producingcode at 2x the rate of Microsoft. I am just saying J

 

Heh.. okay so I am done having fun with numbers. Mypoint is that while it sounds impressive to claim market valuation for Linuxand Fedora, I am not sold yet J.  I think if open sourcewants to be truly disruptive (as much as it claims to be) – it has tolearn how to also value itself differently than status quo.

 

 

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will the real number please stand up

Slate article that gives a powerful insight into market behavior.http://www.slate.com/id/2202263/

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin issued a call on Tuesdayfor regulation of the "over the counter" derivatives market, which hasan estimated size of about $596 trillion. By contrast, the value of theworld's financial assets—including all stock, bonds, and bankdeposits—was pegged at $167 trillion last year by McKinsey. How can thederivatives market be larger than the entire world's financial wealth?

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Advice from Sequoia to companies in its porfolio

Worth your time. If you are in a early stage or growth company, pay particular attention to slides 46 and 47.

Sequoia Capital on startups and the economic downturn

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: depression recession)

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Doh! what was I thinking - i should have realized that quadrillion is the answer

In a sign of the times, the National Debt Clock in New York City has runout of digits to record the growing figure. As a short-term fix, thedigital dollar sign on the billboard-style clock near Times Squarehas been switched to a figure — the "1" in $10 trillion. It's markingthe federal government's current debt at about $10.2 trillion. The Durst Organizationsays it plans to update the sign next year by adding two digits. Thatwill make it capable of tracking debt up to a quadrillion dollars. Yep,that should solve all of the problems.

Yahoonews link

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The essence of capitalism

http://www.wescooppoop.com/ is a company that serves seven citiesaround the Austin area :). Their business model is simple, they scooppoop. I am not quite sure why they started this or if this has alwaysbeen a life long dream of someone. But I do know this if this companyis surviving, it is because there is a demand from people who believethat it makes sense for them to pay another person to pick their dogspoop. The market is a strange beast indeed.

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inspiration is all around you

Nancy Duarte and her team found an example of everyletter in the alphabet in real world items. Really cool!!

 

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why does my template look so bad

Well the story began when I discovered posterous. I fell in love withit. Started using it -> staysmall.posterous.com.All was good -- happy days.
Then i realized that I could have posterous automatically forward myposts to my old blogger account. Even happier days. I like creating myposts through email.

Then trouble struck :-/, it turns out that the html forwarded byposterous does not play well with half decent blogger templates. So Ihad to make a choice and I choose an ugly template and kept my postingconvenience. Just thought you deserved an explanation.

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Want to do something fun and different with your family

Get them together, yes your wife and all your kids. Watch a coupleepisodes of The Cosby Show on dvd. Just cause...

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The future of humanity

Small populations which are isolated can evolve atrandom as genes are accidentally lost. World-wide, all populations are becomingconnected and the opportunity for random change is dwindling. History is madein bed, but nowadays the beds are getting closer together. We are mixing into a glo-bal mass, and the future isbrown.”

 

Source: TimesOnline article on evolution.

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Hilarious! (thanks to Grek Mankiw for the original post)

 

Found here.

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A snippet from an excellent Warren Buffet interview

BECKY QUICK: If you imagine where things will go withFannie and Freddie, and you
think about the regulators, where were the regulators for what was happening,
and can something like this be prevented from happening again?

Mr. BUFFETT: Well, it's really an incredible case study in regulation
because something called OFHEO was set up in 1992 by Congress, and the sole
job of OFHEO was to watch over Fannie and Freddie, someone to watch over them.
And they were there to evaluate the soundness and the accounting and all of
that. Two companies were all they had to regulate. OFHEO has over 200
employees now. They have a budget now that's $65 million a year, and all they
have to do is look at two companies. I mean, you know, I look at more than
two companies.

BECKY QUICK: Mm-hmm.

Mr. BUFFETT: And they sat there, made reports to the Congress, you canget
themon the Internet, every year. And, in fact, they reported to Sarbanes and
Oxleyevery year. And they went--wrote 100 page reports, and they said,
`We'velooked at these people and their standards are fine and their directors
arefine and everything was fine.' And then all of a sudden you had two of the
greatestaccounting misstatements in history. You had all kinds of management
malfeasance,and it all came out. And, of course, the classic thing was that
afterit all came out, OFHEO wrote a 350--340 page report examining what went
wrong,and they blamed the management, they blamed the directors, they blamed
theaudit committee. They didn't have a word in there about themselves, and
they'rethe ones that 200 people were going to work every day with just two
companiesto think about. It just shows the problems of regulation.

 

The full interview can be found here.

 

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here are some numbers that will wake you up

John Paulson, Paulson & Co., $3.7billion. Paulsonmade $3.7 billion last year, mostly by shorting, or betting against,subprime mortgage securities and collateralized debt obligations. Oneof Paulson’s credit funds earned a 590% return last year, according toAlpha; another racked up a 353% return.
Philip Falcone, Harbinger Capital Parters, $1.7billion. There is no word yet on how much money Falcone has made fromchallenging the New York Times board, but shorting subprime mortgagesclearly was a profitable decision.

Deal Journal took a look at Alpha’s list and how the 10 highest-paidmanagers made their money. We ranked them below by name, firm and theamount of their yearly compensation in 2007. Full article here.

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gawker explains the financial crisis in simple terms (thanks to kim for the link)

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Telegraph captures the moment

Telegraph.co.uk captured yesterday's stock market crash as follows:

Corporate America has just lost a chunk of its value the size ofthe Indian economy.

Poetic, eh :-)

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When does this get completely ridiculous?

There have been 3 bomb blasts in India in the past 10 days. Two of them in Delhi (the national capital) and one in Bombay (the financial capital). I am hoping at some point some is going to step up and go; "Guys this is not business as usual. We need to figure out what the #$% is going on!!!" But so far all I am hearing is "In other news today, 6 dead from a bomb blast in Maharashtra. Government says it is looking into this matter"... Come again... you are doing what!?!

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A September call To action

I am excited to be piggy backing on the efforts of Scott Harrison. Here is your call to action.

From right where you are sitting or standing right now, you can take a country from

to

What am I talking about?

• Average American spends 960$/year on presents.
• 960$ will provide 48 people in Ethiopia clean water for20 years!
• 1 out of 4 people in Ethiopia have NO access to clean water.
  
• Women walk three hours a day with 40pounds on their back to get not_so_clean water. Girls have to choose between school or fetching water.
• I am joining Scott in his goal to raise 1.5 million this month to give clean water to 150,000 people through 333 wells.

Think about it, when was the last time you even had to think about clean drinking water. These people are dying because of that. You ABSOLUTELY CAN make a difference.

My birthday is tomorrow... :-) I am not saying you were thinking of getting my a gift. All i am asking is that you consider donating1,2,5,10,32, or whatever amount you can to help with this cause. Also,i realize that you might be already supporting a lot of worthy causes in which case please accept my humble thanks!

If you are ready -> don't hesitate... go here. Oh, if you see me walk around with a black shirt which says"September" on the front. Now you know why ;-) Spread the word around.

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The flip for mobile email devices

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I wish I made this up - from the annals of "Gee maybe my priorities are misplaced"

  sent a letter to  and 

 

"PETA'srequest comes in the wake of news reports that a Swiss restaurant owner willbegin purchasing breast milk from nursing mothers and substituting breast milkfor 75 percent of the cow's milk in the food he serves," the statementsays.

 

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you don't have to live in california to attend Stanford

Welcome toStanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE)

For the first time in its history, Stanford isoffering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge tostudents and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE)expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer andan Internet connection is all you need. View lecture videos, access readinglists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate withother SEE students, all at your convenience.

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Delighting on an incremental basis!

I love the fact that I can quickly create a calendarevent when I reply to an email in gmail. How long has outlook been around? Whycan’t I do this in outlook?

 

 

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onion delivers it in spades :-)

The Onion does it again J.  Link

(btw this is just me enjoying the parody. As soon asOnion publishes their version of Palin’s inbox –not the allegedlyreal one Gawker published, I will most certainly post that as well).

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are we missing big movements in the midst of the urgent?

China'sstate-controlled fund may buy as much as49 percent of the New York-based investment bank, said the person, who declinedto be identified because the talks aren't public and may end in no agreement.Morgan Stanley resumed its decline on the New York Stock Exchange, falling asmuch as 22 percent.

 

 

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The financial bleeding in pictures

A great graphical tool on the NYTimes site today –link.

 

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Hurricane Ike in pics - courtesy Boston.com

More pictures available here -> link

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Lehman files for bankruptcy

To the tune of 639 billion dollars. Said another way;Lehman just told the world that they own the equivalent of two thousand and one hundred (2140 to be exact) Boeing747-8’s (the most expensive plane in Boeing’s productlist) that we cannot pay a penny on. Nice job!

 

Boeingprice chart

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Practical password management

Joel knocked it out of the park with this article, imho.

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Hurricane ike keeps marching along

We continue to wait out Ike’s wrath withfriends. Please be praying for friends and family in the south texas area.

 

Story lines

AP : Hurricane Ike slams Texas coast with majorfloods

Statesman: Galvestonunder water

bbc: BBC NEWS | Americas | Hurricane Ike barrels over Cuba

Hurricane Ike also swept right over Beaumont,Port Arthur, and Galvestonin Texas. Texas refineries processes 1 out of every 4 barrels of oilin the USand this is one of the big concerns for now along with loss to property andlives.

 

 

 

 

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Saudi Arabia scores one for the crazies

Wow really guys, off with their heads eh....

AP
Saudi: OK to kill owners of 'immoral' TV networks
Friday September 12, 9:57 am ET

Top Saudi cleric says it's OK to kill owners of TV networks that broadcast 'immoral content'

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More on my birthday gift

The September Campaign Trailer from charity: water on Vimeo.

Would you like to help? Click on this link.

from the annals of the obvious

Vigorous Physical Activity Reduces Obesity Risk in Genetically Predisposed.

You don't say...

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Want to organize your outlook (the email client not your life)?

      

(photo credit -> flickr -> userBB)

 

 

Try this -> blogpost

I am using the above and excited about it J

 

Or if you are looking for something professional; this-> taglocity.

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The subject is not the challenge to a good presentation.

Alan Cooper shows how to make a presentation onAgile more presentable J

 

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My gift to myself this birthday

This is just a teaser. Stay tuned for more. If you are very impatient, you can click on the link and get the details.

Playing with Posterous

I am playing with posterous. Depending on how much I like it, I might end up making it my primary post platform. The good news is that posterous will auto post my entries to other blogging platforms including blogger. So this blog will stay updated.

You can check out my first posterous entry here (http://bit.ly/4xeaRO)
cheers,
amar

24 Months is just the beginning

Kim and I visited Mammoth lakes, CA to celebrate 24 months of non-stop fun and growth :-). I got exactly what I signed up for and in greater abundance that i thought was possible, I am delighted :) thanks for saying yes to me babe.

We (read Kim) took a lot of pics (she has the eye not me) and below are few of my favs.

What a presentation should be like

Don't think of excuses - just watch and ask yourself can you do something like this instead of the usual bullets and text blobs.


Sky McCloud Presentation from Duarte Design on Vimeo.

For Corin Wagen

littleBits coffemaker from ayah bdeir on Vimeo.

hat tip:: full post here

Not sending any signals but seriously

how cool is this....

Making small progress in the footsteps of Giants

India won its first Olympic Gold since they started competing in the Olympics in 1928.

Abhinav Bindra won India's first individual Olympic gold medal on Monday with a thrilling come-from-behind victory in the men's 10m air rifle.

How much #$%# are we willing to put up with

Umair Haque as usual has a thoughtful and provocative post on the need for fundamental change

Yes, business really does change. 400 years ago, corporations were formed by royal decree. 300 years ago, many countries were powered by slave labour, or its closest moral equivalent. 200 years ago, debtors didn't go bankrupt, they went to prison. 100 years ago - well, business is largely the same as it was a century ago. And that's exactly the problem. Business hasn't changed, but today's array of tectonic global shocks demands a different, radically better kind of business. Yesterday's corporations visibly cannot meet today's economic challenges.

Complete post here.

Let us learn from others mistakes but with caution

My context here is a blog post on Alfresco's blog roll that discusses Vignette's slow but sure decline - full post here.
I don't have domain expertise in the CMS/ECM market and in general i agree with a lot of what Uzi says in his post. He points out the Vignette is "losing the people that they should keep. And they’re keeping the people that they should lose" - which leads me to assume that has inside knowledge about what is going on at Vignette.

My bone of contention is with that following phrase (please read the full post for context before jumping here)

And that’s where the old businesses are falling over. Customers cannot trust in how their money is being spent. It isn’t simply that Vignette’s brand has lost its trust - it’s that the products actually do not work.

Why? Because managers don’t know how to develop good code.

Give them credit, though, for knowing how to keep their jobs.

Umm... really, that is the problem --- "managers don't know how to develop good code". Wow! that scares me.
So let us trace this a little.

a. the brand lost its trust ---> (why?)
b. the products do not actually work ----> (i can see how this can lead to 'a') (why?)
c. managers don't know how to develop good code ----> (let me ask you again -- FOR REAL?)

Products don't work for a lot of reasons - chief amongst them being being poor software, poor understanding of the market problems, poor quality of requirements being given to engineering, ignorance of how the market has changed since v1.0 of the product came out, etc. But rarely does "managers not developing good code" show up on that list.
I would agree that if the product direction is driven by a manager with no technical background or software development experience, that is not a recipe for success. But that is a far cry from "managers don't know how to develop good code".

I understand the point Uzi is trying to make and the distinction being drawn between open source philosophies and "big elephants" but i caution against blaming everything associated with "big elephants" by association.

Imho, one of the reasons I think Alfresco executed so well out of the gate and continues to build on that momentum is Kevin Cochrane - who did not necessarily code (he might have a coding background, i don't know) but did a stellar job of understanding market needs and helped R&D build against it. Kevin's title was product MANAGER :-) if I remember correctly.

Disclosure - I have no stake, interest or strong affiliation with Vignette or the CMS industry. This is more from my perspective as a product manager.

My jaw continues to stay open...

CNN Money headlines

UPDATE: GM Loses $15.5 Billion As Sales Plunge, Charges Mount

This is just Q2 loss - i.e. in a 3 month period. Is this funny money, is this real money. Can we make sense of WT$ this means to a lay man.

How does a company send this information out, lose "investor confidence" but talk about "putting this behind us". How many layers of funny talk and magic financial numbers are we hiding behind.

Forget GM shareholders --- what does this mean to the auto industry in the country?

This is not just GM though, we saw almost all the big financial institutions do this and continue to do this. What needs to happen before there is a outcry for clarity and simplicity in messaging?

Mysteries of Pittsburgh

I am visiting Pittsburgh this week on business. I was uninformed and sadly had prejudged this city. I thought the only thing that was noteworthy about Pittsburgh was the fact that it is the Steeler's town.

This is a really cool city. I have the pleasure of a pitt native guide me through the city and i am really seeing it in a different light. Here are some neat facts about Pittsburgh.

• Pittsburgh turns 250 years old this year.
  
• The Cathedral of Learning - the centerpiece of the University of Pittsburgh is a remarkable building.

Standing at 535 feet (>163 m)^[4], the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the western hemisphere and the second tallest educational building in the world. (Moscow State University's main building in Russia is the tallest.)

• Pittsburgh has the second most funiculars (active and inactive) of any state or province in the world (Valparaíso Chile has the first)

I am sure there are many more things cool about this city - I am just starting to scratch the surface :-). Yes, the title is a nod to michael chabon.

Success..Success..Success... what next?

If you are Pixar --- you freak out and decide to shake things up. That will turn out to be the best darn thing you could have possibly done.

I just read a McKinsey Quarterly article on innovation (thanks boss :)). It was an interview with Pixar's director Brad Bird. In this Brad talks about how Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter came to him because they were afraid. They were coming of 3 huge movie wins in Toy Story, A Bug's Life and Toy Story 2. They were clearly the best animation movie studio in the world and 3 continuous wins to prove it. So what was their reaction?

They were afraid of complacency and sought Brad Bird. Brad's latest venture "The Iron Giant" had received critical reviews but was a financial flop. An unorthodox move at the very least :-) so what do you think happened.

Incredibles - Oscar
Ratatouille - Oscar

Some great quotes in this article but the gist of it seems to be locating, encouraging and harnessing the power of the "black sheep" within your company. Brad defines black sheeps as restless contributors with unconventional ideas.

Who are your black sheeps?

Change is typically met with resistance - PSA

(from my inbox)

Thank you for signing up to "opt out" from getting telephone books at www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org.

A quick update on what is going on in the Yellow Page industry and their resistance to changing their behavior. The following is an excerpt from one of the Yellow Pages leading advocates to help fight anything anti-Yellow Pages:

Time to fight back!!! "Contrary to what you may be hearing and reading, the print Yellow Pages are NOT dead. Far from it. It’s time for the 50,000+ people who make their living from this industry — publishers, agencies, and suppliers, to start to fight back. Now."

www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is a grass roots organization that can use your help to combat the 50,000+ group of people that don’t understand the issue. As we have stated previously, we are not against the telephone book, rather the unsolicited delivery of its many versions on our doorsteps without our permission.

Please send out our link www.YellowPagesGoesGreen.org to as many people as possible. The "opt out" request is growing monthly, and the way to change the world for the better is growing rapidly.

Thanks for your help!

YPGG Organization

Ask yourself "why" before you do something

1. if you are going to record a short video -- Believe in your message
2. if you are going to record a short video -- stitch it together from beginning to end with a good story.
3. if you are going to record a short video just for the sake of putting up a video - it will show.

Gartner video telling you why YOU should attend the BPM summit this fall - http://www.gartner.com/it/summits/611409/video/index.html

Fascinating to read but why?...

Swimming the Amazon: 3,274 Miles on the World’s Deadliest River

Amazon book link

Btw the same gentleman has also conquered the Danube, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze. In 1997, he became the first to swim non-stop from Africa to Europe, and he did it in 29 hours, 36 minutes, and 57 seconds… without a wetsuit. WTF? Seven swimmers had attempted it before and all had failed.

Reality check - a pilot's blog

I was led to Patrick Smith's blog - courtesy Brad Feld. Patrick is an airline pilot who shares his view of the world and specifically the atrocity that is TSA + DHS + Airline industry. I would encourage people to read his blog to get a better all round perspective. Below for instance is a quote that Patrick used to address the misconception that pilots are overpaid, underworked and live lives of ease.

I think of my friend Chris, age 29, who flies for US Airways Express. He is away from home 21 days every month and earns $18,000 a year, with $100,000 in student loans and flight training debt hanging over him. And yet, each time he walks down the concourse, no doubt there are people who eye him with a sneer. Just another overpaid pilot putting in his 20 hours.

-amar

links from kottke day

• Swimming holes in central texas.
• Understanding the work behind mundane things (magazine layout).

The ability to change the world is not in your title

Blogs, blogs and more blogs

This page contains a list of official us government blogs. Interesting blogs include

• EPA's National Dialogue on Access to Environmental Information – EPA's online discussion about identifying and sharing the best resources, tools, and ideas for improving access to EPA's environmental information.
• Health Marketing Musings – A blog about research, science, and practice in health marketing and communication, social marketing, information technology, public health partnerships, and more with Jay Bernhardt, Director of CDC's National Center for Health Marketing.
• NASA Goddard CIO Blog – NASA Goddard CIO, Linda Y. Cureton, blogs about technology, leadership, and being a Chief Information Officer.
• Pushing Back – Office of National Drug Control Policy blog to educate Americans about illegal drugs and the latest international, federal, state, and local efforts to reduce drug use (i like the name :-))
  

Gas saving tips

I am not big into 12 step programs. If I cannot remember it of the top of my head, I have trouble changing my behavior. So here are the 4 things I am doing differently to save gas by increasing the fuel economy of our vehicles. YMMV

• Keep your engine below 3000 rpms. This typically translates to drive on or below speed limit. I rarely exceed 65mph these days. It is yet to make me late to an appointment btw :-)
• Use cruise control as often as possible. Your vehicle is a lot more efficient at moderating gas usage than you ever will be so cruise control is your friend.
• Avoid braking hard. Anticipate stops and watch out for red lights and slow down proactively. Hard breaking burns a lot of fuel.
• Try to group your errands together. Cold starting your engine (been over 3hrs since you last drove the car) consumes twice as much fuel as if your engine was running recently. This might not be a big deal for us in Texas heat but nonetheless a good bit of advice to keep in mind.

Good luck :)