December 21, 2014

Entrepreneurship is not just about money

Long back in IITK I had written about entrepreneurship not being about money only. I understand it much better now & here is an elaboration of that, 3 or 4 years later.
There are only a few mega-successful entrepreneurs, the likes of Narayanmurthy Ji, Bill Gates, Richard Branson etc. But there are a lot more entrepreneurs who are successful, if not mega successful. They are doing what they like and making a good living.

December 5, 2014

nRelate retires December 31, 2014

nRelate, the content suggestion service is closing down on 31 December 2014.

September 2, 2014

Flipkart to stop Payment Services Payzippy!

Flipkart launched Payzippy last year. They are shutting down the Payzippy Payment Services.

July 17, 2014

Difference between Caring & Caring what others think?

I have had a lot of 'I don't care what the world thinks' moments in life & a few extras of late having been in a relationship with a rebellious woman. So, here is what I think,
There is a huge difference between caring about someone & caring about what they think.

When you really care about someone, you care for them, without being judgemental (& vice versa ideally.)
However when you care about what someone thinks about you, you don't really care for them as much as you care about their judgement of you. That how do they judge you.

I don't care what the world or my extended family thinks about me or what I am doing, but I still care about my extended family. If they are ill at 2 A.M. I will rush to get medicine for them, not because I would look good to them, but because that is the right thing to do.
 & that is a subtle difference that people really need to understand.

July 1, 2014

Orkut to Shut Down on September 30, 2014

Orkut, the original social media network by Google, will be permanently shut down on September 30, 2014.

June 30, 2014

People you should never ignore

There are 2 types of people you should never ignore :
1. Family
2. Customers
Family forms the core of your personal life. They are the ones who will stand by you in your tough times. They are who will always support you. (Family includes very close friends who are just like family.)

Customers form the core of your professional life.

June 23, 2014

Basic Geometry Game : Euclid


I came across this new geometry based game yesterday, Euclid The Game. Simple, interesting & only 20 levels, so not time consuming.

June 19, 2014

Why is Social Service Important?

To have a feeling of satisfaction & contentment from life.

More on this later.

Why IIT Kanpur? - Shashwat Chandra

This is a part of a status by my friend, Shashwat Chandra about Why Choose IIT Kanpur?

Why IIT Kanpur? The cultural festival of IIT Kanpur, Antaragni, is run virtually entirely by students. The Students' Gymkhana is a body made of students of all batches. The New SAC (Students' Activity Center, a place for people to hang out) was majorly planned by the students of three batches, and the franchises selected for its food court were selected by a panel of students. The degree of freedom given to students at IIT Kanpur is, in my opinion, definitely larger than most other institutes. IIT Kanpur also has the distinct advantage of being in a city that is much lesser developed than places like Mumbai and Delhi. Why is this an advantage? IIT Kanpur has become self-contained, because there is a larger incentive to make everything available on campus. The choices of extra-curricular activities are larger, the food options are cheap and more varied, and all sections of the campus are together, making it a tighter, closer-knit location. Each club has its own advantages. Some clubs improve your speaking skill; others teach you a new art; even others let you hone your intellect in the direction you want. Art, music, literature, dance, electronics, robotics, photography, whatever your interest, there is going to be an outlet. If there isn't, it is not hard to create an outlet or a club for an interest you feel will benefit you. There are certain to be more people interested in the things you like.
 

June 15, 2014

Star Wars Fans : Awesome Father's Day Picture

Clone Troopers with Kids! Courtesy : Internet


June 10, 2014

Coolest page on the IITK website award goes to . .


June 9, 2014

Why fighting about religion is just plain stupid?

Think of 2 people, both named John Doe. One of them says, "My name is John Doe." The other one says, "मेरा नाम जॉन डो है|"
Now the first one says, the only right way to say it is mine, "My name is John Doe." The other one insists that his way is the right way, "मेरा नाम जॉन डो है|"
Actually from an independent perspective, both of them are correct.

That is all that the fighting about religion/community is.

Everyone is trying to say that their religions shows the "only" correct way, but they are actually the same thing, just in different language or script or methodology or just a different path. Every religion teaches compassion, be helpful to others, don't be selfish, live an honest life etc. basic things that will help you lead a better life, whether you believe in any religion or you are an atheist. No religion (religious "god", whether Prophet, Mahaveer, Buddha, Christ, Guru Nanak or whoever it is that you believe in) ever said that fight with them because they do not follow me.

The methods maybe different, but the goal is the same, to live a happy & peaceful life & help others do that.

Look at it this way : You want to reach Jaipur from New York, now there are many ways to reach Jaipur from New York. Now there are many routes & flights that will take you from New York to Jaipur.

  • Air India flight from NYC -> Mumbai -> Jaipur
  • Etihad flight from NYC -> Abu Dhabi -> Jaipur
  • Jet Airways flight from NYC -> Brussels -> Mumbai -> Jaipur
  • Etihad flight from NYC -> Duesseldorf -> Abu Dhabi -> Jaipur 
All of these flights (& many more) will take you to Jaipur from NYC no matter which flight or route you have boarded. There is no point in fighting over which flight/route is the best, the only best route is the one that you feel the most comfortable with.

That is just how religions work, all of them teach you humanity, no matter who said it or what that religion or its followers are called.

"सच तो सच है, à¤šाहे à¤•िसने à¤•à¤¹ा à¤¹ो" Kanhaiya Lal ji Lodha.

May 31, 2014

The Real Value of Money

The real value of money is not in what you can buy using it, but what good have you done using it.

Have you created a school for the underprivileged or a world class hospital for them, did you donate to that charity you really believed in (such as Jaipur Foot) or did you really do something worthwhile & something that one can never repay you for, without expecting any repayment?

That is the real value of money.
It gives you the means to make a meaningful difference to the world. But you need to make that difference. Money by itself us utterly worthless.

Still more to be written here. Thinking.

May 24, 2014

Contentment is the Key to Happiness

Health, Contentment, Faithfulness
Wise saying by Buddha.
This is another point that I have been thinking about for some time now. We all search for happiness, no matter how wealthy or poor we are, what we are all looking for, ultimately is happiness. Sometimes we think, the new iPhone or the galaxy tab will give us happiness, sometimes it is that huge bungalow or that apartment in that super-luxurious building, getting laid with that hot guy/girl or simply marrying the love of your life or sometimes maybe just a roof on our head or the next meal.

But over time & through some experience, I have realized, the key to happiness lies within us, at least for those of us who do not have to worry about our next meal or having a roof on our head or wearing clothes (not saying branded here, but just clothes. & if you think such conditions do not exist anymore, visit India or Africa & you will see that they do.) i.e. we have at least physiological & safety needs fulfilled from the Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

That key to happiness is, Contentment.

What is contentment?


May 22, 2014

EBay under attack! Change your password now!

Ebay


Importance of Inexpensive Education

Importance of Inexpensive Education (https://medium.com/teaching-learning/45fbfadcf9c6) first post live on Medium.

I am normally against price control regulations & in favor of free markets. But I believe that college fees for higher education have crossed into the realm of craziness. To understand the problem, we have to understand what the true purpose of education is.
True Education is meant to free the mind & the spirit.
Whereas modern higher education is doing exactly the opposite. It is binding people in financial loans which leads them to think of just one thing, MONEY. True Education must empower human beings, it must set us free. It must give us the confidence, the knowledge & the ability to learn to achieve what we want to do, no matter how herculean the task, it must teach us to accomplish one step at a time, learning all the way.
Intelligence + Character, that is the true goal of education. — Martin Luther King.
If you have a student loan of $100,000 when you graduate, it is that much more difficult to refuse a job offer & follow your heart & do what you really want to do. You might want to teach the underprivileged, work on climate change or just take a year off & explore your interests. But it is not an easy decision to make for anyone, & it becomes that much harder when you have a $100,000 loan.

For the creativity of our generations to flourish, for educated people to follow their heart, it is imperative that they not be bound in loan at their peak, right after they graduate.

May 18, 2014

DDoS attack on major websites!

MOZ, MailChimp, 2 of the biggest service providers on the internet are down due to a DDoS attack! (DDoS = Distributed Denial of Service) which basically is the equivalent of a drone attack on a website. Moz recently faced a DDoS attack last month too!

What is safe these days?

DDoS is basically targeting a host server so aggressively that it becomes extremely slow & cannot serve its legitimate users.

Update 18 May 2014 : It took a few hours, but Thankfully, the attacks have been mitigated.

May 4, 2014

Importance of inexpensive quality education

I am normally against price control regulations & in favor of free capital markets. But looking at what has happened to the US higher education system & hence the educated youth of USA, I think it is very important, especially for a country like India, to sustain high quality education at inexpensive prices.
& this I say, not just for higher education, but primary schooling & K-12 too.
The commercialisation of education is bad, it binds the students, it restricts creativity & gradually suffocates quality out of the system.

Continued at http://medium.com/teaching-learning/45fbfadcf9c6

April 15, 2014

Kejriwal gets slapped because people can.

Just yesterday I & Dad were discussing, why is Arvind Kejriwal getting slapped & not the corrupt politicians? & today I read this on Yahoo! News.

It's part of who we are. Think of it like this: You won't hesitate to bargain with the poor vegetable vendor over a kilo of tomatoes, but will meekly pay up in the fancy store where the sign over the counter says 'fixed price'. You will abuse the hell out of the rickshawallah who cuts in front of your car, but will suck it up in silence if the offender is driving a high-end vehicle. Kejriwal is the Aam Aadmi - the vegetable vendor, the rickshawallah; he is us. And we are never so mean as when we deal with our peers.

We are like this only. And maybe we will never change.

And who knows - maybe the next government will be just as bad as the previous one. But at the least, don't forget to vote - it is the one time you get to make your voice count, for whatever it is worth.

April 5, 2014

Wonders of the World : Bank that credits Rs. 86,400 every day!


There is a bank account that credits your account each morning with ₹ 86,400. Think of it, a bank giving away ₹ 86,400 everyday, without fail till the day you are alive. 
There are just 2 caveats : 
1. It carries over no balance from day to day.
2. Because it carries over no balance, it pays no interest. 
Every night the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day. What would you do? Draw / invest every paisa, of course? Not even leave a single rupee in that account, right?

To know how to open an account with this bank, please scroll down.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

March 26, 2014

How a Mother Nurtured her Son's Hidden Genius

This Mother Tore Off Labels And Nurtured Her Son’s Hidden Genius

By Stephanie Broadhurst/The Mother List
Here’s an incredible story about a mother who totally disregarded what experts said about her son and threw off the label that was slapped on him as a toddler. Instead, she followed her own instincts – with astounding results.
Kristine Barnett’s son Jacob was diagnosed with autism when he was 2, and doctors said he would never speak. She tried special education programs and therapies aimed at addressing his limitations. When teachers told her there was no hope, she rebelled and took her own path.
“A lot of people thought that I had lost my mind,” she recalls.
Instead of focusing on Jacob’s limitations, Kristine nurtured his interests. Now her 15-year-old son is on track to win a Nobel Prize for his work in theoretical physics.
Relying on the insights she developed at her in-home daycare, Kristine resolved to follow Jacob’s “spark” — his passionate interests. Why concentrate on what he couldn’t do? Why not focus on what he could? This philosophy, along with her belief in the power of childhood play, helped her son grow in incredible ways.
“He liked repetitive behaviors. He would play with a glass and look at the light, twisting it for hours on end. Instead of taking it away, I would give him 50 glasses, fill them with water at different levels and let him explore,” she says. “I surrounded him with whatever he loved.”
The more she did that, the more it worked. Then one night, as he was being tucked in, Jacob spoke. “It was like music … because everybody had said it was an impossible thing,” Kristine recalls.”I would tuck him in every night and say, ‘Goodnight, baby Jacob, you’re my baby angel, and I love you very much.’ One night he looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘Night-night baby bagel.’ All along he must have thought I had been calling him a bagel!”
Jacob is now a student of theoretical physics at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, with an IQ measured to be higher than Einstein’s.
Kristine chronicles her son’s incredible journey and breakthrough in her book “The Spark: A Mother’s Story of Nurturing, Genius, and Autism.”
When she talks to other moms who have children on the spectrum, ADHD, learning disorders, or other disabilities, she tells them: “It’s really important that when you have a label, you don’t let that label define you. What are your children good at? Let that define them. Create motivations that are self-driven. Let them pursue what they love.”
“As parents, we know in our hearts what our kids need,” she says, “and we need to trust that a little more. Even if that goes against what others are saying.”

Reblogged via : The Mother List

March 19, 2014

Why buying a car is a bad decision?

Cars are depreciating assets. In fact, if you buy them on a loan, as far as I am concerned they are a liability.

Suppose you want to buy a car today.
It will cost you approximately Rs. 5 lacs (assuming a small size medium range car)
5 years down the line value = Rs. 2 lacs (at best)

Instead, if you invest the same money in an asset (anything from FD or PPF to Gold or Bonds)
Investment today = Rs. 5 lacs
Assuming a 8% ROI & neglecting taxes,
5 years down the line, value = 7.34 lacs

Difference = Rs. 5.34 lacs that is you have a difference sufficient to buy a new car. (Not that you should)

Jewelry is a better expense than cars anyday, as it has some inherent value attached to it, but I still don't recommend jewelry as an investment.

So, if you have a good public transportation system, use it. You can save a lot of money by not buying a car.
& that is what I want anybody who is seeking my vote in the coming election, to do. Make a good, reliable, safe & hygienic public transportation system in Jaipur.

March 18, 2014

What has humanity come down to?

Today I was crossing the road & there was this poor lady (who looked physically distorted) trying to get passerby's attention.
But so many people passed her without even looking at her.
She wasn't begging for money, she was asking someone to buy her an asthma medicine (an empty bottle of which she held in her hand)
& people passed by as if she did not even exist.

What has mankind fallen to if we are not compassionate to fellow human beings?

March 16, 2014

Why don't Mac & Windows agree on some basic keyboard shortcuts?

Such as
Opening a file
Renaming a file
Going to a parent folder
Going to a child folder
.
.
.
It would make life so much simpler. & they can still keep their fancy things such as pinch to zoom & multi finger swipes in Mac & alt-ctrl-del & the windows key in PC.

March 10, 2014

Why Learning is Important when you can Google Everything

Most of us can remember formulae, etc., or google most of the stuff we talk about in class. But the one thing you cannot google is how to think.
- Professor Kaul

March 9, 2014

Kyle's Valedictorian Speech will Restore Your Faith in Humanity



The Story Of Kyle

...
One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class walking home from school.  His name was Kyle.  It looked like he was carrying all of his books.  I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on Friday?  He must really be a nerd.”

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on.  As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt.  His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him.  He looked up, and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes.

February 27, 2014

Stephen Wolfram's Introduction to the Wolfram Language


January 27, 2014

What is the significance of festivals?

This was explained by Dr. Subhasha Ji Maharajsaab
Festival is called Parv in Hindi. What is Parv? What is the real, definition of Parv in Hindi?

Take a look at sugarcane. It is made of different pellets or units. Between any 2 consecutive units, there is a ring that joins them. That joint is called Parv.

So Parv in our cultural sense means something that connects people. & isn't that true, festivals are meant to connect to people. That is the primary goal of a festival.

January 21, 2014

How to Undo Last Closed Tab in Safari Mac OS X

This one will blow your mind away. Of you accidentally closed a ab & want to open it again, in Safari on Mac OS X, simply press Command + Z!
& bang the last closed tab will reopen! 

January 17, 2014

Happiness is a choice, not just a chance

Happiness is the holy grail of human emotions. Everyone wants it, all can have it, yet few really have it.
Here Is what I think, happiness is not something that can be bought or otherwise owned, but it is a conscious choice to be happy. (except probably in the most dire circumstances such as prison camps).
If you are reading this, you are not one of the 774 million illiterate people in the world. You are not dependent on someone else to read this out to you. You are one of the only 31% of world population who has access to the internet. & you have idle time to be reading this, you are not trying to work your way to the next meal!

In my short experience of life, I have realised that everything passes on, almost nothing is as forever-ish or permanent as we seem to believe or think. An understanding of which gives us the ultimate choice, the choice to be happy. Every moment we have something to be happy about & something to be sad about. We have been taught to achieve perfection, from  school (get 'perfect' marks) to college (get the 'perfect' job) to work (get the 'perfect' promotion) which makes us see that perfection is the source to happiness. But that is not true. Not perfection, but satisfaction is the key to happiness. & We can be satisfied no matter what we do or do not have, if we choose to be.

Some more thoughts on happiness at Happiness = Reality - Expectations

Related Posts : Contentment is the Key to Happiness

January 2, 2014

Why are there 2 different styles of cards for the bride & the groom?

Some things are very strange. Such as the tradition of different styles of cards for the bride's & the groom's relatives.
There could be just one style of wedding invitation cards for one wedding, the same style goes to both the bride & the groom's family.
Extended family details of both of them could be mentioned in the same card as, Bride's, Groom's.

Here is one possible reason, as told by Dad. There are 2 different functions for the bride's family & the groom's family. Many times, people invite their extended families to just their function & not the counterpart function. Hence, the need for 2 cards. 
He did not fail to add, don't worry we will have just one common card & function for your wedding. 

January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!