Tribute to our Heroes
My heart sinks whenever I hear the name of major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, ATS chief Hemant karkare, commando Gajendra singh and other martyrs. My mind doesn't know how to feel and react in situations like this. Our beautiful country is in trouble and all of us know the reasons behind it. Are we going to learn lessons this time and change ourselves to make it better place to live in? I don't have answer and things look too gloomy to me. Currently I am unable to think much but I have decided that, from today onwards, anyone talking or supporting anything which amounts to national disintegration can not be my friend and definitely I will not show courteous demeanour to such person.
Untitled
I am in Delhi for now and will return to Bangalore after 15 or 20 days. I am a bit busy nowadays and don't have much time to write something on blog but looking at a news item, I cant resist myself to comment on it. Symptoms of destruction are visible now. Here is one example, Raj's campaign may force Bhojpuri industry out of Mumbai.I hope this news doesn't turn out to be trailer with actual film turning out to be shifting of Bollywood(I dont like this name) from Mumbai. We all Indians would love to see Mumbai in the list of important world metropolises but unfortunately some of narrow minded politicians and their followers don't want it. They have all the love and praise for cosmopolitan nature of cities like New york, Vegas and Tokyo but when it comes to their own cities in India their feudal thinking supersedes their education and experience. They love India but They want India to be union of pockets of monolithic societies. I am an optimist and I believe that situation is not as bad as it looks currently.
A comedy show is proving that intelligence outweighs hardwork !
Enough of politics for now :( There will be few more posts on politics soon :). This post is dedicated to our multifaceted and talented cricketers. The purpose of this post is to highlight that only talent can make you famous and rich, even if you are not hard working :)
The only type of shows which I can tolerate, watching on "idiot box"(Now it has little bit of brain, thanks to set top box, but still it may be called idiot box) is laughter shows. Political debates are also tolerable but, broadly speaking they can also be brought under laughter show category. Another show which looked hilarious to me is "ek khiladi ek hasina". Oh yeah, you guessed it right, its same show where you can see blushing, hallucinated and deliriously happy Wasim akram with sexy, gorgeous, confident Sushmita sen(I am a fan of her after watching "Mai hoo Na":). Wasim Akram don't mind(anyone wont mind :) to look like a fool if Sushmita sen is there to sit, next to him. Few days back, I watched only half of an episode of this comedy show :P. I made few observations and thought to write about it. All the girl participants(I don't remember their names) are beautiful and our youth icons sreesanth, Bhajji, Dinesh karthik, Irfan pathan (all are currently unemployed except Bhajji) seems to be enjoying their good luck. Its good to see that Bhajji and Sreesanth are now at peace and it looks like, sreesanth is more than happy to forget a slap or two if you can give him some money. Someone correctly said "baap bada na bhaiya sabse bada rupaiya". Now Dinesh karthik must be thanking Dhoni to continue the boring job of wicket keeping as he has found some interesting and glamorous thing to do. Don't get him wrong, it gives him huge sum of money too. I am sure Dhoni will follow the suit and must be taking dance classes by Shayamak davar or Saroj khan( Deservingly famous for choreographing dhak-dhak girl Madhuri dixit in many movies). Of course the best thing about the show is Sushmita sen but, its also a good platform for our cricketing heroes to pass their free time dancing with a beautiful chick. Yuvraj singh is very fortunate to find something useful to do. Its a long time since he broke up with Kim Sharma and fortunately (unfortunately for Australia) he is not in Test team. Everyone is not as boring and dry as Sachin Tendulkar to practice cricket in off season and be happy with a five year elder wife.
Doubts !
Today I wanted to write something non-controversial and humorous(I already started writing on "Ek khiladi Ek hasina") but after hearing the news that A group of MNS (Maharashtra Navnirman Sena) activists beat up North Indian candidates of the Railway recruitment exam in ICL school at Vashi, Mumbai, I am too pained to do that. Initially it was played by Shiv Sena in 1960 when they were against south Indians( Shiv Sena called them lungiwala). Shiv Sena galvanised people by siting pride in local culture and making "others" from outside standout like sore thumb.Now south Indians are gone (because they are running software companies down south or in US) and they(MNS+Shivsena) want north Indians to be out of Maharashtra. I know there are many sympathisers of MNS cause, allover India and they want that only local people live and work in their respective states( Unfortunately I have to believe this because rarely I have seen articles criticizing MNS from some Marathi journalist(except few, like Sudheendra kulkarni) and none of Marathi news daily or TV news channel have criticized MNS or Raj Thakerey for their irresponsible behaviour). You may ask how do I know this as I don't follow Marathi news channels and news papers. I know this by reading articles in many English news papers(TOI, Indianexpress, HT etc) and they have enough resource to know this. Without being diplomatic, I want to ask anyone who sympathises with the cause of MNS or Shivsena that if they believe in India or not? As we all know, according to constitution of India, anyone can live and work anywhere in India, and that's the essence of India. Do you expect Maharashtrians to be beaten by local people when they go anywhere else other than Maharashtra. Should we have Passport and Visa for every state? DO you want Bollywood to be shifted to Delhi, Lucknow or Patna as they produce Hindi movies and there should be a law that only Marathi Movies can be produced in Bombay? All of India can not be equally developed and uniform in distribution of all the things. Some places will be good in something and others will be good for something else and people will move according to their choice and suitability to work. Not only India, its true for any large country in the world. California is software hub and anyone in America willing to work in software industry is free to go there. People from Alaska and Arizona are not beaten when they go to new york.
In India, Wherever I go, I can feel a sense of belonging that goes beyond history, geography, religion or language. Anyone knowing me knows very well that I have always been a firm believer in the concept called India but, now unwanted and fearful doubts are casting shadow over my mind. Almost all of the young people I know are very excited about going abroad. They have almost valid reasoning( not for me) that one should live and work where, there is best opportunity and conducive environment for the same. with all the rants listening day and night about how world is changing and Globalization is the new mantra, I don't know why but all these ideas didn't appeal me. I know, we don't have infrastructurlike developed nations have. Our system is corrupt. I can make fast bucks by working abroad. I can guarantee better future by studying in some Ivy league American university but the very thought of leaving India made me to procrastinate these plans. I never had a doubt before that whether I am doing right thing or not. I was very confident and believed that I can have a bright future in India too and someday we will be able to correct wrong things here but now I am a bit apprehensive about the correctness of my decision. Few exceptions can be ignored but routinely happening the same thing force you to think about it. Still I am optimistic and hope that very few people are interested in hate politics propagated by parties like MNS and Shiv Sena.
Inevitable has come to pass !
Finally, after 19 years of magic, Sachin is the leading run-scorer in Tests. Like many Indians, cricket is more than a sports for me. I loved playing cricket and now I love watching, thinking and analyzing cricket. Tons has already been written about the greatness of Sachin and I am not capable of writing more beautiful than what has been written and said by cricket experts. I can try to write something, but unfortunately I don't have time to do so, as I have to read all the articles written about Sachin and watch the match highlights in TV. Now I can say with certainty that watching Sachin to break the record is more satisfying and makes me more happy than getting unexpected cheque of Rs. 66,686 :) Also its infinitely better to watch Sachin, break the record than to look at a $23 cents cheque.
Financial crisis taking dangerous turns !
Some bad news for bachelor guys in IT industry.The financial crisis entered a potentially dangerous new phase on Wednesday. According to Times of India Report, the parents of brides-to-be are no longer in search of IT grooms for their daughters. Although I don't have much faith in research conducted by TOI but this time I am really worried. I know TOI has enough resource to do this particular research. They have a news channel which has lots of good looking girls as correspondent and journalist. Looking desperately at these girls in news channels :P, it looks sizable percentage of them are unmarried. If this research turns out to be true then worst sufferer of current financial crisis will not be Lehman Brothers, Merill lynch or Washington Mutual but unmarried boys in Indian IT industry. Few will be able to overcome this crisis because of their safe investments in past but coming days will be tough for majority. I am seriously of the view that government should think of something in the lines of financial bailout package to rescue the erstwhile greatly desired (exaggerated) bachelors In IT industry. One suggestion is to give some financial aid in case some damsel wants to marry a boy working in IT industry. This will partially mitigate the fears of girls and at least few beautiful girls will take the risk of marrying boys in IT industry. Its responsibility of the government to stop total collapse of the hope of the unmarried, unlucky and unsuccessful IT guys. We don't have any option, other than to believe in the God and our government.
followup on previous post.
Below is a chat transcript. See how helpful I can be to my friends. This chat will also make it clear that how shortcut in spelling stresses the mind of reader. Only few bad shorrtcuts cn=can, lik=like and tat=that made life miserable for me. Imagine the case, when you are talking to some shortcut expert :D
abhishek: there ?
me: ha
7:10 PM abhishek: tu chemistry mein kaisa tha ?
me: achha tha :P
abhishek: to ye bata
cn water molecule b indexed as in sequenced..n liduid state
lik suppos thr r 100 molecules n 1ml of water..cn tat 100 molecule b sequnced...1-100
lik suppos thr r 100 molecules n 1ml of water..cn tat 100 molecule b sequnced...1-100
7:11 PM me: ye kis mahaan aadmi ne poocha hai aur kis bhasha me likha hai question
abhishek: :D
7:12 PM arre....meri ek behan hai....bio informatics mein b.tech kar rahi hai
usne poocha hai
7:13 PM me: abe B.Tech me engineering chemistry hoti hai aur tu class 12th tak padhe insaan se is type k question pooch raha hai. bol de ha agar kuch bolna hi hai to
abhishek: thanks :)
7:14 PM me: urw :D i am glad that i was able to help u :D
abhishek: :D
will give u more chances to be glad
me: sure
:P
Shortcut phobia and useless words !
Unfortunately I cant claim that I am an authority in English language and I always chose right words to express my thoughts. My English vocabulary is very limited but I always try, not to make this scarce resource useless. I understand, its legitimate to shorten the words while chatting over IM or sms but I cant understand the point in making the words short if their is no significant saving of real estate or time. If you can avoid at least two letters without making the reader over stressed then its justified eg. using bcoz in place of because, 2moro in place of tomorrow, u in place of you, r in place of are, GN in place of Good night etc. can be thought of, as a requirement to be quick without losing meaning but I don't understand usage of hw in place of how, mak in place of make, vry in place of very, bein in place of being, tym in place of time, etc. This type of distortion of words doesnt make sense to me. They neither effectively save the real estate nor they mak(oops!) make you fast in typing. The stress on the mind of unintelligent readers like me is unimaginable and I have seen totally incomprehensible sentences(may be writer thought I am a bit more intelligent than what actually I am). In some cases words are made longer without any useful purpose, to make it more fashionable. One example is "my" replaced with "mah". I will not tell you more examples like this otherwise someone may guess that i am talking exactly about her style :D I know you all are very well aware of this useless, distorted word list so there is no point in taking unwanted risk. Most important of all I am a nice guy so I don't want to demean anyone :D
There are few words or phrases which I don't like personally. May be, they are useful for you but I find them very boring. One such word is hmm or hmmm or hmmmm or....you can add any number of m after h. The problem with the hmm is that it doesn't say anything. It neither says yes nor No. It doesn't convey that reader is confused or in what sort of mind he/she is. but this is my personal taste and you may have liking for this word. A phrase which doesnt look nice to me even though there is nothing wrong with it is use of "I know". Suppose I am giving you some information without knowing that you are aware of this, then saying "I know" sounds ........hmmm, it doesn't sound cool :D Instead of saying "I know" responding "Yes, I know" or "Yes, I am aware of this" or only "yes" in many cases sounds more cool( or cuil !)
Feminists please forgive me and dont waste your time in suing me. Its my observation that female homo sapiens have more tendency to use these useless, distorted, boring words. Usually males learn the usage of these words from their female friends :) I am open to criticism and you can protest by posting your comments.
statistics
I have few casual observations from initial statistics and intensity of comments on my blog. I have nothing to do with these observations and they are purely statistical in nature. I would like to make it clear that these observations are not going to affect my future posts. I will write whatever I feel like writing (RGVs "AAG" mentality :). I am writing these observations here so that readers start commenting on less popular topics too (Egalitarians you have something to correct:D:)
Here are the observations:
1) people are most interested in relationships and they are dying(not literally) to see or relate through a live example :)
2) People are interested in real stories.
3) There are people (sadly few":):)":) passionate to think about society and counter someone if there is slightest trace that someone has an argument against egalitarianism.
4) Some has interest in theories but only scientific theories. They don't like the simple fact that contradictions in social theories doesn't prove the invalidity of the theory itself.
5) No one cares to comment on your blog( or on gtalk and email:) if you are redirecting them to some other place, No matter how interesting or inspiring the link is.
6) Please don't write about technology as everyone is equally aware of all the technologies as you are.
7) Finally the biggest disappointment:( There are very few interested if you are going to make humor a discussion topic. Although many people have commented personally on gtalk that "sarcastic humor" is interesting but statistics tells something different.
Thank you Xerox, IBM, SUN !
From college (undergrad school for Americans) days, I am a strong supporter of open source software and in general open technologies and standards . Yes, you guessed it right, typical engineering college boy(not gals) mentality. I started using Linux to show others that I am a nerd :) and cool but believe me it was for the start and now I am a true Linux fan. Unfortunately I have to use windows even though I hate it because My company provided laptop Dell Vostro 1510 doesn't support Linux and I cant find NIC or Ethernet and audio driver for it. I tried my best and searched extensively and unsuccessfully to find the drivers. I was completely frustrated and was thinking seriously of buying a laptop or a Desktop so that I can install Linux on it. Some of my friends suggested me to use some virtualization tools to use Linux over windows but my experience in college with these tools were too bad so I hesitated doing so. Then one of my friend told me to use SUN virtual box and convinced me to give it a shot. Bingo! its amazing! Its too cool to resist. You can have as many guest Operating systems over the host windows as you want and it works really nice. No issues with speed. Now I run two Operating systems, Fedora and Opensolaris over an unwanted Windows XP. I still have problem with audio driver inside virtual box but it hardly matters as I can run the three operating systems simultaneously. I can use windows for audio, video and Linux for doing real stuff at the same time on a single machine.
All the three companies I admire most have proved to be useful for me. #1 on the list Xerox helped me a lot in college. Without photocopier from Xerox my life in college could never be that free and joyful as it was. #2 on the list IBM is my first employer and provided me every opportunity to be successful. You guessed it right, #3 on the list, SUN gave me virtual box which saved me of wasting my hard earned money (not really :P) to some computer vendor.
If you are facing the same problem of using windows or you wanna give Linux a try without experiencing the pain of using dual boot system, just go through the following steps.
1)Download and install virtual box from here.
2)If you want to use opensolaris then download it from here. If you already have some Linux distro cd or ISO image then cool! If you want latest Fedora, get it from here.
3)Start virtual box and add guest OS. Its pretty simple and with a little bit of common sense you can do it easily.
4)Have a nice time using as many operating system as you want simultaneously inside a virtual machine and a single real Machine.
Inspiring!
While crawling the web, I accidently saw a touchy article. Unfortunately I dont have money to take action but surely sometime in future I will do something. India needs more IITians who thinks like Atanu and less in number the people who enter in to the IITs to get subsidized education and meal so that they can dream of flying abroad in the night. Here is the speech composed by Atanu for the PanIIT 2008 conference:
Dear Fellow IITians:
A good morning to you and how are you all?
I see that you are all having a wonderful time. Isn’t Shilpa Shetty quite a bomb? I tell you, the stuff of dreams. Aren’t we just great? We must be. Otherwise why would such a stellar personality — a phoren star — come to strut her stuff here? Aside from the money we paid her, of course.
Not just good looking people, we are so important that India’s only living Nobel Laureate, Prof Amartya Sen, has changed his schedule just to fly in and deliver his usual spiel about inclusive growth. Wow! We’re the best. The cat’s whiskers, the loin’s (sic) roar, the cheery on top of the sundae, the crème de la crème. Isn’t that precious!
But I got some bad news for you, sunshine. We have all fed at the trough of public largesse. We’ve sucked at the teat of involuntary public generosity. We, the select, the few — our fancy education was funded by denying a very large number of the really poor the opportunity to even get a basic education.
So my precious sweeties, don’t you think that it is time that you actually paid the full cost of your education now that you can? Should we not today, now, here, at this very convention — and a very nice convention it is — decide that every one of the fortunate 300,000 should contribute at least the full amount spent on us for a fund which will do for others what was done for us?
Let me make the promise of paying Rs 20 lakhs today into this fund — the IIT Graduates’ Gift of Gratitude Fund (IITGGGF) — to be used for the future generations of IITians. I don’t have that cash lying around in my checking account but I am sure that I can get a bank loan today and pay back that amount I owe.
In other words, put up or shut up, my preciouses.
Thanks and may you all have a wonderful time congratulating each other on how wonderful you all are.
Intelligence vs Hard work
Lets assume There are two types of persons, 1st is sharp and intelligent but not hard working. He does work but only for a limited amount of time. He cant sacrifice anything like playing, reading, watching movie, travelling etc. for the sake of work. If he has some work to do and it needs extra time out of his work schedule then he wont do the work. Second guy is very hard working. He is good but not as intelligent as first one. He has the intelligence to perform the work assigned to him by hard work but lacks the spark or trickle of intelligence which first one has.
who is more useful for making society and world a better place? Who deserves greater rewards? What do you think?
I admire 1st kind of person more than 2nd type of persons.I have three reasons and I will put it in black and white.
1) If today intelligent person don't have time to do work then tomorrow he will have and work will be done. World is not going to end today [:P]
2) Something great, revolutionary and world changing things can be done only by 1st type of person. 2nd type of person may be better at maintaining the existing processes and making existing things working but they wont be able to ignite a revolution and invent something marvellous. With only 2nd type of person, world will be boring, stuck and progress will be too slow. With only 1st type of person, world will be less organized but it will be exciting and more progressive.
3) 1st type of person can devise machines to minimize the effort required to do something hence he will compensate his lack of ability to work hard. 2nd type of person cant do anything to compensate for his lack of intelligence. Only hard work wont be able to compensate for the lack of ideas.
Because of all these reasons I think its important to keep intelligent persons happy and also they deserve more rewards.Basically I am advocating one of the principles of capitalism. Anyone against my reasoning?
Sarcastic Humor
Once I did a survey amongst the people I interact regularly and asked them a simple question, what do they think about my sense of humor. Majority of them responded very diplomatically and indirectly that my humor is sarcastic as if sarcasm is not a good thing. A sizable percentage were confused and told me that what sort of question this is. I enjoy whatever your humor is. I thanked the confused mass and told them that others think that my humor is sarcastic. Then they tried to console me that its not true and mostly my comments are clever and quick witted. It seems some people really don't wanna hurt me :P. From this survey I came to know that people generally don't like sarcasm as a tool to be used to create humor. My opinion is absolutely opposite of the majority of this survey. I appreciate sarcastic comments and generally I have high regards for the people who are capable of using sarcasm to create humor.
Whats the point by saying something which is obvious and then expecting that others will enjoy it. Basically you are insulting them by questioning their intelligence. I know, sarcasm is bad when its intended to insult a person but then that cant be categorized as sarcastic humor. The thing which differentiates a bad sarcasm from a good sarcasm is the intention. Also your relationship with the person to whom you are talking and his common sense plays a strong role in deciding whether you are in safe zone or not.
In short, If you want me to take you seriously, don't say too many obvious things and you will make me happy by making few sarcastic comments. But this statement has a caveat. Keep two things in mind while making a sarcastic comment. Your intentions must be good and you have a good relationship with me. Of course, I have common sense so you need not think about it.
I wanted to talk more about the humor but unfortunately I have to do some important work :( I am not as free and useless as some people think of me :) You can comment and tell me what do you think about the sarcastic humor and my sarcastic comments. Don't worry you wont hurt me by saying that I offended you in the past by some sarcastic comments. If your relationship is good with me, I will safely assume that you don't have common sense :P If not then I will assume that however good my intentions are you will take it wrongly :P
Vantage Point
Note: Some of my friends are thinking I am Jai and he is Veeru.
That's completely wrong, I think you are considerate enough to give me some freedom of thought in writing. My friends, any of you don't have a girlfriend who is gorgeous and good looking like Basanti :D
I have a short story. I just want to know if this is a happy or sad ending story.
There were two friends. They had a unique friendship. The only words people ever heard from them were "Keep out of our business!". They were ready to do anything for each other. People were saying that this is another "Jai-Veeru" story in making. They had common friends and common enemies too. Jai was ready to fight anyone without a reason if Veeru had a reason and vice-versa . For them fun is only when they were together. They never cared anyone and anything else as if only two of them were sufficient to conquer the world. Everything seemed to be perfect for them.
Unfortunately after sometime it dint worked out as they wanted it to be. Alas! reality once again showed its true colors and made Jai realize that perfection is not possible. Veeru found Basanti. It was the beginning of end for their Utopian friendship. Unlike Sholay, Basanti made Veeru realize that money is very important or it should be spent only for veeru-basanti. Also Basanati said to Veeru that your time is only meant to be spent with me, now you are not a free man, we have to make future plans and that requires all your time. Initially Veeru refused to do so but after some time he gives up and informs Jai that this is how it is, please go and look for a girl you idiot. Jai feels frustrated and starts looking for a girl. He also gets trapped in one of the proposals and listens the same girlish worlds of wisdom and starts believing that he is born only to spend time with this girl. Utopian vision for their friendship was lost but both of them found their soul mate.
Epsilon theory.
For readers, who don't know what epsilon is, here is a brief background from wikipedia.
Epsilon (uppercase Ε, lowercase ε; Greek: Έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . Letters that arose from Epsilon include the Roman E and Cyrillic Ye.
Here is the most important use of ε to remember. This notation from mathematics forms the basis for our postulate
In mathematics (particularly calculus), an arbitrarily (or nearly so) small positive quantity is commonly denoted ε;
Postulate.
If X is the amount of love you are going to have after marriage then affair before marriage is like an ε. Affair adds an ε amount of extra love in your life. In some cases people have tendency to add multiple epsilons in their life.
There are two obvious but completely different corollaries proposed by different set of people on this postulate.
corollary: 1
In India, Its not worth to waste your time on ε unless its not free because by construction of the society in India, everyone is guaranteed to have X unlike some countries where ε is a must to achieve X.
corollary: 2
Even though ε is negligible in comparison to X but ε has some distinguished properties which makes it desirable to posses at least 1*ε for whatever cost it demands. This distinguished property is difficult to explain in words.
These two contradictory corollaries from the same postulate makes this theory controversial and its still matter of much study and research amongst social scientists. Up to the writing of this post validity of none of the corollaries has been proved and none have been contradicted with certainty.
The theory presented here will form the basis of many upcoming posts like marriage, love marriage, arrange marriage, premarital affairs, post marital affairs etc. these posts will assume validity of any one of the corollaries depending upon the state of mind and experience gained at the time of writing post.
Note: Both the corollaries and postulate are open for further refinement.
Also many people tend to assume both the corollaries as independent lemmas depending upon the experience they have.
The amount of confusion and broad nature of these corollaries makes this theory very popular research topic specially for younger people.
Epsilon (uppercase Ε, lowercase ε; Greek: Έψιλον) is the fifth letter of the Greek alphabet, corresponding phonetically to a close-mid front unrounded vowel /e/. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 5. It was derived from the Phoenician letter He . Letters that arose from Epsilon include the Roman E and Cyrillic Ye.
Here is the most important use of ε to remember. This notation from mathematics forms the basis for our postulate
In mathematics (particularly calculus), an arbitrarily (or nearly so) small positive quantity is commonly denoted ε;
Postulate.
If X is the amount of love you are going to have after marriage then affair before marriage is like an ε. Affair adds an ε amount of extra love in your life. In some cases people have tendency to add multiple epsilons in their life.
There are two obvious but completely different corollaries proposed by different set of people on this postulate.
corollary: 1
In India, Its not worth to waste your time on ε unless its not free because by construction of the society in India, everyone is guaranteed to have X unlike some countries where ε is a must to achieve X.
corollary: 2
Even though ε is negligible in comparison to X but ε has some distinguished properties which makes it desirable to posses at least 1*ε for whatever cost it demands. This distinguished property is difficult to explain in words.
These two contradictory corollaries from the same postulate makes this theory controversial and its still matter of much study and research amongst social scientists. Up to the writing of this post validity of none of the corollaries has been proved and none have been contradicted with certainty.
The theory presented here will form the basis of many upcoming posts like marriage, love marriage, arrange marriage, premarital affairs, post marital affairs etc. these posts will assume validity of any one of the corollaries depending upon the state of mind and experience gained at the time of writing post.
Note: Both the corollaries and postulate are open for further refinement.
Also many people tend to assume both the corollaries as independent lemmas depending upon the experience they have.
The amount of confusion and broad nature of these corollaries makes this theory very popular research topic specially for younger people.
Big vs Small
Big Corporation vs a Startup (Perspective of a very young employee)
Just passed out of college I joined the biggest Technology company in the world(IBM) and worked there for one year. I was doing pretty well there, Everyone was saying that my career is going in right direction. Yes, I also feel I was doing good. In short period of time one patent approved for filing, four more disclosure filing. My manager was also happy with me and my American aka felt I was good. I don't know how many employees get a chance to hear from there manager that he was being asked by Tech lead ( My tech lead was a big shot in IBM) and US manager to make sure that this guy (me :) doesn't feel unhappy.But i am sure the number is not too big. Then suddenly I changed my mind and joined a startup. The change was justified only in my mind.everyone else barring one or two was thinking that it was foolish and suicidal. Most people warned me before I took final decision. they tried to convince me by all their arguments that taking such a huge risk at this early stage of career is not wise.
I talked to one person, and without asking for her permission that if she was willing to consult me or not, asked her to tell me what to do. Thankfully she told me what I wanted to hear and I was convinced that I am doing good :)My thinking was that this change was aligning with my long and short term Goals. Short term goal was to earn more money.At new place I was going to get 100% salary hike on increased salary after appraisal at older place. At the the top of it there is a chance to make money later by stock options. This was impressive from any point of view. This turned out to be better after I got my first salary at new place. I am feeling more independent, My wardrobe has more number of clothes and I have more number of gadgets. :)
Only the time will tell, whether my decision was foolish or not. If it turns out to be foolish, I may suffer and struggle but definitely won't regret. I did whatever I wanted to do.That's reason enough to keep me satisfied. I respect the good intentions of the people who warned me well in advance, but without being disrespectful I will say, they were confusing and not helpful.Sometimes lessons can be learnt only hard way and its best not to confuse more to a person who is already confused and adamant to do whatever he wants to do. Remember, he is asking you the question in the hope that you will highlight something good about his decision. He is not saying you to tell the reasons so that he can change his mind.
Yes there are difference between working in a large and a small company and its very close to be described as cultural change but definitely not as cultural shock. There are some obvious differences.In a startup you interact with fewer number of people, you work in a smaller office, Processes are less organized and in many cases they may not be in place. Believe me these things doesn't make a large difference in your life and they should not be a factor in deciding whether to work for a large company or startup.
The good thing about the startup is that you know everybody and almost everything about the company. You can talk to CEO and vice president. Your ideas are more visible and you have better say in changing something if you want to. Learning curve becomes steeper and you work hard to make things working. You become less dependent upon support system as its absent in many cases. You learn by experimenting, reading and doing things at faster rate. You
get lesser number of chances to fail and this makes you more accurate.
In a big company, environment is more formal, everyone has their well defined role and its very difficult to get to know about other things.People in startups are generally more enthusiastic about the technology and market. everyone thinks and discusses about everything. Even if you are a developer,you get a chance to be in customer meetings. You can see why deals happens and why it breaks.These advantages of a startup is helpful with my long term goal of becoming an Entrepreneur.
The one factor which favors working in a Big company is job security and its definitely is a very big factor while going for Big Vs small. Analyze your risk taking appetite and if you can afford small then only go for it otherwise its better to change your mind.
One more big disadvantage working for a startup is that there are very less number of girls :( and unless you are very lucky you may not find a single suitable gal to accomplish your future plans :) I was not very lucky in IBM also and IBM was almost as bad as this new place so it doesn't make any difference in my life.
Overall change is good for me and I hope, situation will be better in future.
Thank you consultant for free consultancy :) I needed someone to support my decision and you did that well. Also I am thankful to one of my friends who tried his best to get me out of IBM. Rock on !
Confusion !
I made a conscious effort to make this post as short as possible. I haven't included citations, quotes from some personalities who, according to my perception are intelligent. If this post looks long to you then I am sorry and go away. I cant make it shorter than this. This post is for my personal reference only and does not talk about anything interesting. If you don't have extra time to waste then please leave this page immediately for your own welfare.
So here it goes, whenever I try to analyze myself and the system in which I am living, I get confused, I feel like,what the hell is happening with me, what kind of person I am. What type of society I am living in. I don't have a clear cut idea of almost anything. I am confused, and here is the gist for few of my confusions.
confusion#1 "God, religion and all"
I don't know whether I am an atheist, theist or Agnostic, but it seems my thoughts puts me closest to a definition of agnostic. Religion is something which I think a lot about and at the end of day I become more confused. Why do people believe in God? My perception is that because people don't want to take a chance, they want to be on safer side, if by chance GOD exists then he may punish him/her for denying the existence of almighty. Nobody wants to take risk by
annoying omnipotent, almighty God. But you said he is always helpful, always does good. He is interested in welfare of humanity, life and nature in any form. Oh cm on! even if GOD exists, then by your own definition, he is not going to punish you, so be bold and don't follow something just for the heck that everybody else is saying its there, if you have sufficient proof to believe, then alright, best of luck, don't bother me. I will find myself as you found it and don't force your experiences on me. I don't see any reason to believe that you are more capable than me in finding out this truth.Yes, because the background is different. The background is the only thing that can express itself. What else is there? My expression of it is the background: how I struggled, my path, the path I followed, how I rejected the paths of others -- up to that point I can say what I did or what I did not do -- so, that did not help me in any way. one of the most popular reasons why people believe in GOD is because they are damn sure that they have got many favors from GOD which reinforces there belief that God exists. Absurd, totally absurd, do you know,if some event has probability 0 of its occurrence then it doesn't mean it may never occur, it can, but I am sure it also doesn't infer that GOD exist.It looks I have more inclination towards not believing in GOD but I don't have enough reasons and proof for it. To be on safer side (its natural human tendency) I currently pretend myself to be an Agnostic, If God exists then, Oh almighty! please ignore my ignorance, I never said you don't exist, and if God doesn't exist then its cool I dint do anything to satisfy God, my precious time was not wasted in doing it.Voila!! I am confused but on safer side. Maximizing gains is aim of all the businesses we do and I am simply doing that.
confusion#2 "How to behave or live in society"
Broadly speaking there are three school of thoughts on "how to behave or live in society". First one says, do whatever your heart says, never think about right or wrong, self love is the only love. you got it! I am talking about objectivism, the philosophy made popular by Ayn Rand. I have two doubts abouts this philosophy, first of all it is impractical and difficult to practice unless you are a sage and living in Himalayas. If one claims to be normal person, living in a social system and also claims that he follows objectivism then at best he may be called a hypocrite, and according to me, he is making a wasteful, infertile attempt to gain liberation by fooling himself. Also one of the downsides of objectivism is that it will make society too boring and mechanical. That's not how we want world to be. Imagine a situation in which everybody loves himself and do whatever he wants. Is this interesting to you? Not to me. How boring !
The basic principle of objectivism lies in objective reality. generally objectivists don't believe in God or supernatural. they authorize themselves the prophet of reason, truth and reality. Alright. that sounds cool and I will make you happy by saying that you belong to a cult and I will also accept that it endorses my current state of confusion and satisfies me by saying that you are not thinking something too odd. Then the question comes, why don't I label myself as a objectivist? here is the answer from the church of reality.
"Unfortunately however, much of objective philosophy extends beyond the concept of objective reality (feature creep), and under the banner of Objectivism Ayn Rand extols the virtues of being selfish, greedy, and all but worships capitalism. At the same time, Altruism is described as "evil", as culture Objectivists look down their noses at generosity, giving, sharing, selflessness, and community concepts. Objectivists claim to be rugged individualists and advocates of
individual freedom. I also support individuality and individual freedoms, however I don't see community as the opposite of individuality. Objectivists are not entirely monolithic in their beliefs. One Objectivist named David Kelly wrote an article titled Generosity and Self-Interest where he acknowledges that "dichotomy between self-interest and generosity is a false one." However, Objectivism has been called an Unlikely cult because the Ayn Rand
followers have adopted her personality quirks which includes extreme arrogance. I would hope that we learn from this".
second school of thought says, "think good, be good, do good". I don't have enough time to think what is good so please go to hell or heaven but don't trouble me or yourself by telling what is good.
There is third school of thought which says live life as it is, don't think too much about it, enjoy every moment of it. what a crap! I am a thinking human being and God(if it does exist!) has given me some brain so please don't tell me that I can follow this path. Its out of scene.I may be insane but I claim to have my mind. I don't endorse objectivism, totally disapprove "think good, do good, be good" policy and I am not lame enough to accept "don't think" attitude. It looks like I am ineligible to join any of the schools, I am confused, what will happen to my career without a degree :(
Confusion#3 "Capitalism vs Socialism"
Although in its pure form, both capitalism and socialism endorses philanthropy and altruism and both are based on the basic principle to make a happy social system. No matter how much one blames other but in my opinion both of them are good in their ideal form. But in practicality there are large differences between the two.Practical capitalism does good job when there is good regulatory mechanism to check its misuse by certain individuals or organisation with vested interest and exploiting the herd mentality.But its too big an assumptions and I don't think currently we have enough capability to device such mechanism. So called "Land of opportunity" I am not happy to see you as a model of capitalist state, you are the biggest exploiter of the world and its resources. Also you are the most selfish and destructive model one can think of. Stop being snob and looking down at other less privileged one. Unfortunately everyone sees you a model to emulate which is not so good. you are presenting a bad example to follow.
I have no doubt in my mind that Socialism as a concept looks attractive but I have a firm belief that in its pure form its not implementable and its implementable version is too far from the concept that it becomes more exploiting and bad than capitalism. None of the concept is capable of making a happy social system. Its better to find a balance between the both. I don't see this happening anywhere in the world so I am confused that if someone wants to make the world happier place! Everyone has their rigid thoughts and they are following the books which they liked most, even if the principles in that book is not helpful or capable of achieving something good. Thank you! Marx, Engels. I am convinced that your ideas were good but I am also convinced that they are of no practical use.
This is the topic which can be really long so I am ending it here without raising too many questions about both the systems.
lets have fun and enjoy confusion !
So here it goes, whenever I try to analyze myself and the system in which I am living, I get confused, I feel like,what the hell is happening with me, what kind of person I am. What type of society I am living in. I don't have a clear cut idea of almost anything. I am confused, and here is the gist for few of my confusions.
confusion#1 "God, religion and all"
I don't know whether I am an atheist, theist or Agnostic, but it seems my thoughts puts me closest to a definition of agnostic. Religion is something which I think a lot about and at the end of day I become more confused. Why do people believe in God? My perception is that because people don't want to take a chance, they want to be on safer side, if by chance GOD exists then he may punish him/her for denying the existence of almighty. Nobody wants to take risk by
annoying omnipotent, almighty God. But you said he is always helpful, always does good. He is interested in welfare of humanity, life and nature in any form. Oh cm on! even if GOD exists, then by your own definition, he is not going to punish you, so be bold and don't follow something just for the heck that everybody else is saying its there, if you have sufficient proof to believe, then alright, best of luck, don't bother me. I will find myself as you found it and don't force your experiences on me. I don't see any reason to believe that you are more capable than me in finding out this truth.Yes, because the background is different. The background is the only thing that can express itself. What else is there? My expression of it is the background: how I struggled, my path, the path I followed, how I rejected the paths of others -- up to that point I can say what I did or what I did not do -- so, that did not help me in any way. one of the most popular reasons why people believe in GOD is because they are damn sure that they have got many favors from GOD which reinforces there belief that God exists. Absurd, totally absurd, do you know,if some event has probability 0 of its occurrence then it doesn't mean it may never occur, it can, but I am sure it also doesn't infer that GOD exist.It looks I have more inclination towards not believing in GOD but I don't have enough reasons and proof for it. To be on safer side (its natural human tendency) I currently pretend myself to be an Agnostic, If God exists then, Oh almighty! please ignore my ignorance, I never said you don't exist, and if God doesn't exist then its cool I dint do anything to satisfy God, my precious time was not wasted in doing it.Voila!! I am confused but on safer side. Maximizing gains is aim of all the businesses we do and I am simply doing that.
confusion#2 "How to behave or live in society"
Broadly speaking there are three school of thoughts on "how to behave or live in society". First one says, do whatever your heart says, never think about right or wrong, self love is the only love. you got it! I am talking about objectivism, the philosophy made popular by Ayn Rand. I have two doubts abouts this philosophy, first of all it is impractical and difficult to practice unless you are a sage and living in Himalayas. If one claims to be normal person, living in a social system and also claims that he follows objectivism then at best he may be called a hypocrite, and according to me, he is making a wasteful, infertile attempt to gain liberation by fooling himself. Also one of the downsides of objectivism is that it will make society too boring and mechanical. That's not how we want world to be. Imagine a situation in which everybody loves himself and do whatever he wants. Is this interesting to you? Not to me. How boring !
The basic principle of objectivism lies in objective reality. generally objectivists don't believe in God or supernatural. they authorize themselves the prophet of reason, truth and reality. Alright. that sounds cool and I will make you happy by saying that you belong to a cult and I will also accept that it endorses my current state of confusion and satisfies me by saying that you are not thinking something too odd. Then the question comes, why don't I label myself as a objectivist? here is the answer from the church of reality.
"Unfortunately however, much of objective philosophy extends beyond the concept of objective reality (feature creep), and under the banner of Objectivism Ayn Rand extols the virtues of being selfish, greedy, and all but worships capitalism. At the same time, Altruism is described as "evil", as culture Objectivists look down their noses at generosity, giving, sharing, selflessness, and community concepts. Objectivists claim to be rugged individualists and advocates of
individual freedom. I also support individuality and individual freedoms, however I don't see community as the opposite of individuality. Objectivists are not entirely monolithic in their beliefs. One Objectivist named David Kelly wrote an article titled Generosity and Self-Interest where he acknowledges that "dichotomy between self-interest and generosity is a false one." However, Objectivism has been called an Unlikely cult because the Ayn Rand
followers have adopted her personality quirks which includes extreme arrogance. I would hope that we learn from this".
second school of thought says, "think good, be good, do good". I don't have enough time to think what is good so please go to hell or heaven but don't trouble me or yourself by telling what is good.
There is third school of thought which says live life as it is, don't think too much about it, enjoy every moment of it. what a crap! I am a thinking human being and God(if it does exist!) has given me some brain so please don't tell me that I can follow this path. Its out of scene.I may be insane but I claim to have my mind. I don't endorse objectivism, totally disapprove "think good, do good, be good" policy and I am not lame enough to accept "don't think" attitude. It looks like I am ineligible to join any of the schools, I am confused, what will happen to my career without a degree :(
Confusion#3 "Capitalism vs Socialism"
Although in its pure form, both capitalism and socialism endorses philanthropy and altruism and both are based on the basic principle to make a happy social system. No matter how much one blames other but in my opinion both of them are good in their ideal form. But in practicality there are large differences between the two.Practical capitalism does good job when there is good regulatory mechanism to check its misuse by certain individuals or organisation with vested interest and exploiting the herd mentality.But its too big an assumptions and I don't think currently we have enough capability to device such mechanism. So called "Land of opportunity" I am not happy to see you as a model of capitalist state, you are the biggest exploiter of the world and its resources. Also you are the most selfish and destructive model one can think of. Stop being snob and looking down at other less privileged one. Unfortunately everyone sees you a model to emulate which is not so good. you are presenting a bad example to follow.
I have no doubt in my mind that Socialism as a concept looks attractive but I have a firm belief that in its pure form its not implementable and its implementable version is too far from the concept that it becomes more exploiting and bad than capitalism. None of the concept is capable of making a happy social system. Its better to find a balance between the both. I don't see this happening anywhere in the world so I am confused that if someone wants to make the world happier place! Everyone has their rigid thoughts and they are following the books which they liked most, even if the principles in that book is not helpful or capable of achieving something good. Thank you! Marx, Engels. I am convinced that your ideas were good but I am also convinced that they are of no practical use.
This is the topic which can be really long so I am ending it here without raising too many questions about both the systems.
lets have fun and enjoy confusion !
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