3 steps to easier networking with people

Most people are too shy to meet strangers and carry on a conversation with them. Networking with people can, however change your life by giving you access to information you would never have otherwise, like new job openings, or interesting business prospects. Jeff Colvin has a simple three step process for networking with people during an event.
1. Prepare : Find out about the people who might be there, and the industries you are interested in.
2. Meet and Listen: Introduce yourself to a group and listen well to a conversatoin. Note down ideas on the backs of the business cards you get from people in the group.
3. Follow up: Send an e-mail within 24 hours - Reintroduce yourself, and talk about the ideas and solutions you have. People will be interested.

[Link:] Jeff Colvin's Management Tips

The Taj turns 350

A tribute to the Taj Mahal. (I'll resist the temptation to say "Man's greatest erection for a woman").

Should you spend money on technology or development?

I posted this story on Slashdot about India's moon mission and as expected, there were plenty of comments on the lines of 'Shouldn't India focus on removing poverty before sending rockets to the moon?'. I could give plenty of arguments about how it is impossible for a nation to focus single-mindedly on development while completely ignoring technological progress, but one poster gave the best possible analogy using the President's Moon to Mars commission report:

One hundred and fifty years ago, if President Lincoln had formed this board, you might have called the "The Commission on Iowa, Colorado and Beyond." And you would have faced the very same questions!

"Can we afford to explore the West?"
"Isn't it dangerous out there?"
"Shouldn't we solve the problems of the East Coast first?"

And maybe even, "Is there life in California?"

(This comment was actually made by a witness during a public hearing of the Blue Ribbon Space Commission in San Francisco)

$83 million spent on science is $83 million that creates jobs, makes people want to get get educated, makes educated people want to work in India, and yes, it's $83 million that's *not* spent on bombs. I say, Hurray!

Obligatory periodic link to new pictures :-)

	I took this picture a few weeks back during the Vegas trip. There was a railway track running parallel to the freeway and this train just happened to be zooming by. Holding the camera still was a bitch, but somehow it behaved for the duration of the shot.
If the camera doesn't stay still when you are shooting, this is what you can sometimes get :-)

[Link:] Complete Photo Gallery

Locking out Academics

Bruce Schiener (the guru of cryptography) has written a piece on how tight visa controls are hurting academics in the US. It's become so difficult for academics to come to the US in the past three years that people are simply scheduling conferences elsewhere. Many students are opting to do their graduate studies in other countries such as Canada due to visa hassles. As any researcher will tell you, only a small percentage of all published papers are written solely by American researchers - the graduate college in most schools would not exist if it were not for the foreign students who come here for research. The great technological achievements in this country are partly due to the contributions from countless brilliant minds who have come here from all over the globe - it will America's loss to see them go elsewhere!

The world's first education satellite

On monday, India launched the world's first education satellite - a two tonne (~2000 kgs) satellite using a home-built rocket. The Indian space program has come a long way from 1975 when it built a satellite that was sent piggyback to space on a Soviet rocket. The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) soon built its own rockets, but for a long time it did not have the capability to launch the heavier satellites and was dependant on the European Union's Ariane rockets. With this satellite launch, India has finally dumped the Ariane rockets for its home-brewed GSLVs (Geostationary Satellite Launch Vehicles).

Why is this newsworthy? It's not just about the technological achievement (which is impressive since ISRO manages to work wonders with its miniscule budgets and limited access to technology, thanks to periodic US sanctions). The thing that I love the most is that money is being spent on technology that brings education to millions of Indians without access to proper schools, instead of spending it on weaponry and wars. It's always sad when schools have to beg for money when billions are spent on missiles and warships that only mess up the world.

Why DRM is bad for you, me and my neighbor's dog.

Cory Doctorow gave an excellent talk to the Microsoft research group at Redmond on why DRM is ineffective, bad for business, bad for society, bad for artistes and bad for all the companies involved. Cory makes the excellent point that while DRM is totally ineffective (as in, it is never possible to protect media from being duplicated illegally as long as there is some way to play it legally) the entertainment industry is bent on creating legislation that makes it illegal to try to circumvent DRM - never mind the fact that you already own the media. So even if you buy a DVD, it is illegal to try to circumvent the built-in DRM to try to play it on your Linux box, or to copy it to a tape as a backup. The weirdest thing about DRM on DVDs is the region-encoding system used - If you buy a DVD in the US, you cannot play it in any other region, say Europe or Asia. Think about it - if you buy an audio tape, or a book in the US, would you be pissed if you could not play it or read if when you go abroad?

Continuing the general trend of help-me-I'm-drowning acts from the MPAA, they have pushed through legislation in California which makes it a misdemeanor to share files online without publishing your email address. Woohoo! Isn't that the holy grail for law enforcement? Now all you need to do in order to track a file sharer is the email address. Of course, someone hasn't heard of free email addresses, or even bogus ones.

Same shit, new place.

I'm in the process of moving my site entirely to this domain. I am also putting together a new home page for this site, and a better site for my photographs. I'd like to change the look of this page, but then I don't care and I know you don't either. (Don't you just love my smiling mug?) I have also moved over to the Blogger comment system, and I could not figure out a way to retain the old comments, so we'll have to start all over again here. Keep coming, and keep posting!

And now for your morning dose of entertainment. Check out this freakin' hilarious video. Keep your audio on (no, this is not one of those scary screaming videos) and close the door so you can laugh. (Thanks Vivek)

Even as 'The Donald' makes that twisted face and says 'You're fired' to people each week on his show, his Casino business is going down under. Of course, such stuff cannot hurt him (probably his shareholders - but, naah, not 'The Donald') and he can continue to make his asinine remarks on television, write bestsellers and sell credit cards (and pimp himself out to anyone else who can offer him dough). Seriously, this guy is so pompous and blatantly egotistical that you wish someone would fire him.

The show, however is addictive because of all the contestants and the real-life tasks they have to perform. I wish they did not have the restriction of having to be a citizen/permanent resident to compete - we would get to see leaner and meaner competitors.

I found some of your life

Some dude found a digital media card in a NY taxi which had 277 pictures covering exactly one year in some person's life. He began to post one picture every day along with a fictional narrative for each picture on a blog while pretending to be the owner of the images. Some of the images are banal but they mesh together to create an interesting and hilarious fictional world for 'Jordan'.
Of course, there remains the question of whether this is a legal thing to do. So far no one has come forward to claim the images, but whether he does so or not, he and his friends are poised to become the new Internet celebrities. Creepy, but who the heck cares as long as we get our daily entertainment!

Update: Maybe because of all the publicity and bashing the story received on Slashdot, the site has gone under.

One of those infrequent drizzles in Tempe. [complete collection]

Goatse for people

For years people have been terrorizing unsuspecting internet users with the goatse image. The image is a real shocker and has the potential of sending you back into therapy, so google for it only if you are prepared to view the image.

Goatse has spawned a whole new internet subculture with ASCII images and creative mutations of the images available all over (Warning: These sites are not work safe!), but Time magazine has given a whole new spin to it on its latest cover. (Intentional or not, is not for me to say).

For a work-safe description of the goatse image, and its history, check the wikipedia entry.

UPDATE: Goatse is all around you.. if you know how to look for it!

When companies lack vision..

From The Innovator's Dilemma -When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail :

After William Shockley's team invented the transistor at AT&T's famous Bell Labs, AT&T was contacted by a Japanese businessman staying at a cheap NY Hotel. He wanted to license the transistor. (For the non technical guys - a transistor is one of the tiny devices that are found in all electronic circuits. It is not the same as a transistor radio - which gets its name since it uses a transistor as one of its main components). AT&T in its famous lack of vision kept putting him off, but he was persistent enough to clinch the deal.
The story goes that one of AT&T's people asked the businessman what he was going to do with the technology.
"Build small radios".
"Why would anybody care about small radios?" asked the AT&T guy.

Apparently people did care, since this businessman was Akio Morita, the founder of Sony. And transistor radios? they are everywhere!

This is historic times

Slate at MSN has a compilation of Bushisms which include some of these howlers.

"Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB/GYN's aren't able to practice their love with women all across the country."—Sept. 6, 2004, Poplar Bluff, Mo.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."—Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004

"I want to thank my friend, Sen. Bill Frist, for joining us today. … He married a Texas girl, I want you to know. (Laughter.) Karyn is with us. A West Texas girl, just like me."—Nashville, Tenn., May 27, 2004

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."—Washington, D.C., May 25, 2004

"This has been tough weeks in that country."—Washington, D.C., April 13, 2004

"One of the most meaningful things that's happened to me since I've been the governor—the president—governor—president. Oops. Ex-governor. I went to Bethesda Naval Hospital to give a fellow a Purple Heart, and at the same moment I watched him—get a Purple Heart for action in Iraq—and at that same—right after I gave him the Purple Heart, he was sworn in as a citizen of the United States—a Mexican citizen, now a United States citizen."—Washington, D.C., Jan. 9, 2004

(sic)

(Don't stop here, read them all.)

What happens in Vegas..

A weekend in Vegas. Hoover Dam is just 30 miles or so from Vegas, so we stopped there sometime around midnight. At night it is hard to appreciate the magnificence of this Dam. It looks more like a half-finished construction site. If you look closely at the picture you can see a beam of light rising upwards - from the Pyramid on the Vegas strip! It is the world's brightest beam of light and apparently you can read a newspaper by its light 10 miles in outer space!

What happened in Vegas that night will have to stay in Vegas. (in the better interests of my health).

Our hotel had a free breakfast and an Elvis impersonator to go with it. Pretty cool I say! Off we went to New York-New York to take a ride on their rollercoaster. My first rollercoaster ride, and I have to confess, I closed my eyes for part of the ride. I could literally feel my balls rise into my stomach when we took the plunge! Boy, do I wanna do it again! On the sidewalk there was a mechanical 'Swami' who kept intoning in his fake Indian accent "I know everything.. give me money and you can also know everything...". (followed by a shifty glance all around)

I finally saw my first Vegas show at the MGM Grand. David Copperfield! It was a toss between the Cirque Du Soleil ('O' at the Bellagio, Mystere at Treasure Island, or Zumanity at New York-New York ), or and Copperfield and since I don't know sh*t about the Cirque, it had to be Copperfield. This guy's magic is not astonishing (I'm saying this since I've seen magic shows all my life - it's an unavoidable fact of growing up in India, and nothing compares to P. C. Sorcar's shows), but Copperfield's showmanship is beyond comparison. He has the gift of speech, charm, ready wit and a great technical crew. The lighting itself is enough to immerse you in the magic, and everything is so smoothly choreographed that you hardly realize when one trick ends and the other begins.

For one of the tricks, he invited a lady from the audience. As the camera focused on Copperfield leading the lady to the stage, she grabbed one of his butt cheeks, and then the other and held on to it till she reached the stage. I'm sure David enjoyed it as much as we did, but he was quick to say "The name's Copperfield, not cop-a-feel". For another trick, a paternal looking guy was asked "When was the last time.. (everyone laughs anticipating the question) you got busy". Now we all know what 'busy' means.
"Yesterday night" goes the visibly flustered guy.
"How many hours ago?"
Thinks for a while. "Two hours".
"Did you start two hours ago, or did you just finish two hours ago?"
More embarassment and wild laughter. "I did it two hours ago"
"With a partner, not by yourself!"
His kids will never hear about this show.

On the way back we stopped on the Hoover Dam again. It's easier to appreciate the Dam in daytime. The opening sequence in Goldeneye where James Bond supposedly bungee-jumps over a Russian military installation was, ironically enough, shot at one of the most recognizable civilian structures in the United States - the Hoover Dam! Check out some of the pictures in my photography collection.

Yes that's real rain!.

How to drink and drive and get away with it.

I'm not encouraging socially irresponsible behaviour, but the knowledge doesn't hurt. (thanks Lorena)

Another lovely sunset over Tempe. Every sunset is so different, and so beautiful in the valley! Having so many buildings at ASU also means that it is so easy to frame sunsets using the skyline.