Sunday, December 28, 2008
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
I’ve just finished hearing this book by Malcolm Gladwell. I say ‘hearing’ because I managed to get hold of the audio book. After sitting through seven hours (1 hour per chapter) of Malcolm Gladwell’s narration, here are the things that I found interesting and useful.
- 10,000 Hours. That’s the minimum time required to achieve mastery of pretty much anything.
- Talent will not get you to the top. It will get you in through the door. You still have to work insanely hard to make something useful out of your talent.
- Outliers, or those that achieve far more success than normal, work much much harder than normal people. They are driven. They are able to work that hard because they are driven.
- Just working hard however is not enough. To be wildly successful, you must be in the right place, at the right time. You must get good opportunities.
- Where you come from makes affects chances of your success. Your culture, your family, the work that your parents do, all of this is directly correlated to your success.
- Hoffstede’s Cultural Dimensions: The result of a 20 year long study by a Dutch researcher. Classifies people of different countries based on 4 dimensions, thereby describing their behavior.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The End : Or shall I say, The Beginning?
After slogging through the weekend and using the services of WinAmp and two marvellous plug-in's : LoopMaster and Pacemaker, I have managed to decode the first few lines of this, very favourite of songs.
It remains to be verified by the Master. But it sounds really close. In any case, if it is wrong, I'll make corrections here.
My bet is that the song is in D-Major and the pitch is D, 3rd String, 7th Fret.
The song itself is in D Major.
The song goes like this:
[Notation: small letters mean flat notes. Underscores imply lower octave. / imples slide]
(4th String open) , S , N_/S P_ || X 2
S , N_ S S/R R/g/R S , S S S/N_/S S
P_ N_ S R G m G/m/G R
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Mumbai 26/11 Siege
Yea, it was a siege.
Thankfully, it's over now.
What do I think about it? I heard/read that the terrorists had three aims in mind when they did this attack:
What's the best way to stick it to these guys, their minders and whoever else is linked to this?
I'm too scared to join the army. I'll accept that. So, what else can I do? Here's what I'm planning to do.
Work a little extra. I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it. If a third of our population in the service industry picks up the pace, pushes productivity, turns out even greater profits, this attack's aim is nullified. Terrorists will realize there's no point trying stunts of the sort they did, because India only comes back the next day and works even harder. Makes better products, writes more code, handles more clients.
Vote. Enough said about this one. Get off your ass, quit complaining and vote.
Crass as this might sound, Have Fun! Go out, meet with friends, catch a movie, visit a mall. Go on a vacation!
Don't change your habits. That is exactly what terrorists want. They want you to be terrorized. And nothing will sadden them more than to see that people really seem to bother much and carry on living. Greatest example I saw of this attitude was a gentleman who had brought his 2 year old kid outside Taj on Saturday evening. A TV anchor asked him if he felt safe to come to this place, this scene of carnage. With this child.
He gave a huge wide grin and said - "I'm not scared at all."
Take that terrorists!
Stop pointing fingers at Muslims in general. While it is true the terrorists were Muslims, it is also true that the reason they pretended to be "Deccan Mujahideen" is so we in India can kill each other and undo the enormous progress we've made in 60 years of Independence.
My visit to two Arab countries earlier this year (Jordan and Egypt) opened my eyes already and now, I believe more than ever, that a handful of rotten apples are indeed bringing an entire religion down. I can only imagine how hard it must be for a moderate, liberal, educated Muslim right now. Shamed and suspected for no fault of theirs.
I'll leave you with two pieces of writing.
Suketu Mehta, wrote this, in New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/opinion/29mehta.html?em
But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever.
Thankfully, it's over now.
What do I think about it? I heard/read that the terrorists had three aims in mind when they did this attack:
- Harm India's economy by making it seem like a dangerous place to do business in.
- Harm India's Tourism Industry, by striking fear in foreign and domestic tourist, right at the start of the season.
- Foment ill will between Hindu's and Muslims thereby de-stabilizing the economy.
What's the best way to stick it to these guys, their minders and whoever else is linked to this?
I'm too scared to join the army. I'll accept that. So, what else can I do? Here's what I'm planning to do.
Work a little extra. I know it sounds ridiculous, but think about it. If a third of our population in the service industry picks up the pace, pushes productivity, turns out even greater profits, this attack's aim is nullified. Terrorists will realize there's no point trying stunts of the sort they did, because India only comes back the next day and works even harder. Makes better products, writes more code, handles more clients.
Vote. Enough said about this one. Get off your ass, quit complaining and vote.
Crass as this might sound, Have Fun! Go out, meet with friends, catch a movie, visit a mall. Go on a vacation!
Don't change your habits. That is exactly what terrorists want. They want you to be terrorized. And nothing will sadden them more than to see that people really seem to bother much and carry on living. Greatest example I saw of this attitude was a gentleman who had brought his 2 year old kid outside Taj on Saturday evening. A TV anchor asked him if he felt safe to come to this place, this scene of carnage. With this child.
He gave a huge wide grin and said - "I'm not scared at all."
Take that terrorists!
Stop pointing fingers at Muslims in general. While it is true the terrorists were Muslims, it is also true that the reason they pretended to be "Deccan Mujahideen" is so we in India can kill each other and undo the enormous progress we've made in 60 years of Independence.
My visit to two Arab countries earlier this year (Jordan and Egypt) opened my eyes already and now, I believe more than ever, that a handful of rotten apples are indeed bringing an entire religion down. I can only imagine how hard it must be for a moderate, liberal, educated Muslim right now. Shamed and suspected for no fault of theirs.
I'll leave you with two pieces of writing.
Suketu Mehta, wrote this, in New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/
But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow
domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought
and action--
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
-- Rabindranath Tagore
Wall-E : The Review
It’s not often that a movie review starts with a look at the credits of a movie. However, such is the artistry and attention to detail in WALL-E, that I have to mention this upfront.
This is a plea to you, if you haven’t seen WALL-E. Don’t miss the credits. The artwork is dazzling, to say the least. It covers various styles, from raw pencil sketches to Van Gogh style pointillism. If you already saw WALL-E, go back and see the credits. They’re worth it.
What about the rest of the movie, whose credits are so noteworthy? The rest is brilliant. This is the story of the last robot on Planet Earth. Humans, continuing their wasteful ways have brought upon so great a pollution, that they have been forced to leave the planet. They have left behind skyscrapers of trash, and an army of cleanup robots, or WALL-E’s.
When the movie starts, just one of these are left functioning. I was tempted to use ‘alive’ instead of ‘functioning’ there. So human-like is WALL-E in his ways.
In a tip of a hat to all those engineers in Silicon Valley, WALL-E’s character is extremely similar to that of an Engineer.
We see how WALL-E follows a daily routine of drudgery, has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), leading to the neat lining up of his ‘treads’ when he returns ‘home’. He’s also a collector, of Zippo’s, among other things. He has in iPod and is a Noah of sorts, cataloging the artifacts of the age gone by. He is also desperately lonely. His only friend is a cockroach who rides on his ‘back’ when he is cleaning up the waste wastelands and making little cubes of trash and lining them up.
On one such day of drudgery, WALL-E finds a sapling, in an otherwise barren landscape of what looks like New York City. He takes it back home.
Soon after, his humdrum routine is severely disturbed by the arrival of EVA. Although it is never explicitly pointed out, Eva is ‘female’. Such is the enormous skill of the people who made this movie. This is the kind of subtlety that we hope to see in Bollywood more often. Fortunately, we have already directors of the caliber of Ram Gopal Varma, who demonstrated the power of the Language of Film in the movie – Sarkar. Hopefully, more such directors will come along.
Eva is obviously looking for something, and it is apparent she has come from the ‘future’. She is far more sophisticated (she packs a weapons system on her forearm, WALL-E only has claws), and far shinier. Like a gadget from Apple, no less. The similarity is not a coincidence because Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Vice President of Design, designer of such icons as the original iMac, the iPod, the Powerbook etc spent a few days at Pixar designing and/or providing inputs about what Eva should look like.
It then turns out Eva had been sent to find signs of life on Earth, and when she see’s the sapling in WALL-E’s den, she becomes a static container and goes into Hibernation, much to the dismay of WALL-E, who has already started to behave like a star struck lover.
WALL-E then follows Eva into Axiom, which is a huge space ship where humans have taken refuge, waiting for Earth to detoxify.
The humans of the future are presented in poor light. They’re fat, have baby feet and cannot walk anymore. Neither do they talk to each other, or take care of their kids. In a salute to movies like THX-118, humans exist purely to consume. They are also incredibly stupid, and it is clear that it is their robots that keep them alive.
After this, there’s the obvious appearance of the villain, a couple of chases, and a happy ending.
However, I have to mention a couple of things, because they were so magnificent.
The villain is a look alike of Arthur C Clarke’s HAL 9000. That evil red eye, malignantly staring, and controlling the ship as well as its captain. This of course, is not the end to the salute to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke. When the captain stands up for the first time, we hear Thus Spake Zarathusastra which we heard in the exceptional opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the apes first stand up.
The other thing, which I’m beginning to notice is all Pixar movies, is the reference to the Misfits, The Pirates. Ratatouille had a dialogue where the female chef actually says – “We’re not workers, we’re artists, pirates!”
There’s some element of that in Cars, with the bizarre bunch of cars, road rollers etc that finally help McQueen to glory.
And we see that here too. In a strictly controlled society of robots, the one’s that finally help Eva and WALL-E are the ones from the Robot Mental Asylum. The crazy one's, The Misfits.
A subtle message from Apple, reminding us to Think Different!
All in all, watch this for exceptional animation, a great story, tremendous attention to detail and clean, wholesome entertainment. Highly recommended, for both young and old.
This is a plea to you, if you haven’t seen WALL-E. Don’t miss the credits. The artwork is dazzling, to say the least. It covers various styles, from raw pencil sketches to Van Gogh style pointillism. If you already saw WALL-E, go back and see the credits. They’re worth it.
What about the rest of the movie, whose credits are so noteworthy? The rest is brilliant. This is the story of the last robot on Planet Earth. Humans, continuing their wasteful ways have brought upon so great a pollution, that they have been forced to leave the planet. They have left behind skyscrapers of trash, and an army of cleanup robots, or WALL-E’s.
When the movie starts, just one of these are left functioning. I was tempted to use ‘alive’ instead of ‘functioning’ there. So human-like is WALL-E in his ways.
In a tip of a hat to all those engineers in Silicon Valley, WALL-E’s character is extremely similar to that of an Engineer.
We see how WALL-E follows a daily routine of drudgery, has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), leading to the neat lining up of his ‘treads’ when he returns ‘home’. He’s also a collector, of Zippo’s, among other things. He has in iPod and is a Noah of sorts, cataloging the artifacts of the age gone by. He is also desperately lonely. His only friend is a cockroach who rides on his ‘back’ when he is cleaning up the waste wastelands and making little cubes of trash and lining them up.
On one such day of drudgery, WALL-E finds a sapling, in an otherwise barren landscape of what looks like New York City. He takes it back home.
Soon after, his humdrum routine is severely disturbed by the arrival of EVA. Although it is never explicitly pointed out, Eva is ‘female’. Such is the enormous skill of the people who made this movie. This is the kind of subtlety that we hope to see in Bollywood more often. Fortunately, we have already directors of the caliber of Ram Gopal Varma, who demonstrated the power of the Language of Film in the movie – Sarkar. Hopefully, more such directors will come along.
Eva is obviously looking for something, and it is apparent she has come from the ‘future’. She is far more sophisticated (she packs a weapons system on her forearm, WALL-E only has claws), and far shinier. Like a gadget from Apple, no less. The similarity is not a coincidence because Jonathan Ive, Apple’s Vice President of Design, designer of such icons as the original iMac, the iPod, the Powerbook etc spent a few days at Pixar designing and/or providing inputs about what Eva should look like.
It then turns out Eva had been sent to find signs of life on Earth, and when she see’s the sapling in WALL-E’s den, she becomes a static container and goes into Hibernation, much to the dismay of WALL-E, who has already started to behave like a star struck lover.
WALL-E then follows Eva into Axiom, which is a huge space ship where humans have taken refuge, waiting for Earth to detoxify.
The humans of the future are presented in poor light. They’re fat, have baby feet and cannot walk anymore. Neither do they talk to each other, or take care of their kids. In a salute to movies like THX-118, humans exist purely to consume. They are also incredibly stupid, and it is clear that it is their robots that keep them alive.
After this, there’s the obvious appearance of the villain, a couple of chases, and a happy ending.
However, I have to mention a couple of things, because they were so magnificent.
The villain is a look alike of Arthur C Clarke’s HAL 9000. That evil red eye, malignantly staring, and controlling the ship as well as its captain. This of course, is not the end to the salute to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke. When the captain stands up for the first time, we hear Thus Spake Zarathusastra which we heard in the exceptional opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey, when the apes first stand up.
The other thing, which I’m beginning to notice is all Pixar movies, is the reference to the Misfits, The Pirates. Ratatouille had a dialogue where the female chef actually says – “We’re not workers, we’re artists, pirates!”
There’s some element of that in Cars, with the bizarre bunch of cars, road rollers etc that finally help McQueen to glory.
And we see that here too. In a strictly controlled society of robots, the one’s that finally help Eva and WALL-E are the ones from the Robot Mental Asylum. The crazy one's, The Misfits.
A subtle message from Apple, reminding us to Think Different!
All in all, watch this for exceptional animation, a great story, tremendous attention to detail and clean, wholesome entertainment. Highly recommended, for both young and old.
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