The Rule of Four - My Review

After finishing The Lost Symbol, I read a couple of real duds and immediately started looking for a book which is a mystery and a puzzle solver to bring my interest in books back.

So while browsing our bookstore, I came across this Rule of Four and out of the 20 or so appreciations on the blurb, atleast 15 enlikened this to the Da Vinci Code. So I brought this home and here is what I found.

Firstly, this is not a complete puzzle thriller. While there is a major part of this book that will interest the intellectual community, it is not completely focused on decrypting what the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (the book within the book which is the puzzle). So that is one positive in favor of the book.

The second thing is that this does not have anything to do with demystifying or trashing Christian (or any other religious) ideals. The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is an obscure book written in the 16th Century and has a mystery completely different from the genre we got so used to. So this is a big point in favor of the authors. And my understanding is that the book is not 'inspired' by the Da Vinci code. In fact, work on the book would have begun much before the 2004 publishing of the novel and comparing it with the blockbuster by Dan Brown is not really fair.

In fact, The Rule of Four is a book about friends, about life in the Princeton, about the generation we live in, and a lot about the 16th century also. The way the authors have put the whole thing together - without losing focus of the puzzle which is what the story revolves around, is truly amazing! We normally find that two-author novels lack the intensity of the single author ones, but this is sure an exception to the rule. Tom, Paul, Gil, and Charlie represent completely different ideals and every reader will find something of them in one of the characters - making the book even more relatable.

But since the primary reason the book is such a blockbuster (it has sold over 4 million copies and is the best selling debut novel of the decade) is because readers have expected it to have intricate puzzles and it does! Since the puzzle in question here is a book none of us have ever heard of, it is even more intriguing!

What the authors - Caldwell and Thomason - do so well is draw the line at a perfect place; so that the readers don't need to drink a cup of coffee to struggle through the complexities of the puzzle. It does not take us through unnecessary Latin or anything else which is so vital in solving the puzzle the book throws at us; and instead the authors just make us spectators to Tom and Paul figuring out the puzzle. That in itself deserves a lot of accolades!

Once again, the book is about friends and about everything they go through; about life's changing priorities as they rush through their college years, and about the ambitions that people harbor. What I love the best is the ending, which has nothing to do with the puzzle at all - it is solved well before the last 50 pages or so!

Absolutely worth a read.

Warner Bros is making this into a movie, but it is the book which one should read. The film is bound to focus on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili puzzle alone, and that steals the beauty away from the efforts of the author.

Best Quotes in under 10 words!

I was actually searching the internet for a quote to put up on my Skype page, and I found this gem!

With all credit to the site from which I am picking this up, here are the ten most awesome quotes of under ten words each.

Source - http://www.careerlab.com/comments.htm

Inspiration: "The World's Best Quotes in 1-10 Words."

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I've collected thousands of inspirational quotes. It seems that nearly everything that can be said, has been said, simply and eloquently, in a way that can seldom be improved. Winston Churchill wrote, "Broadly speaking, the short words are the best, and the old words best of all." So, I collected "The world's best quotes in one to ten words." These are the quotes, and my comments:

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1. Love. —The Prophets

   Jesus, Gandhi, Buddha. All the world's religious saints and prophets hold love as a central value, the glue that anchors the universe.

   We hear, "Love makes the world go round," and "Love heals all wounds." These are familiar themes: love of friends, ideas, and self. Love of God and of country. Even love of life itself. If I could only have one word for all eternity, love would be my choice.

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2. Know thyself. —Socrates

   In college I studied philosophy under Professor Don Crosby, and met Socrates early. In career development, self-knowledge is everything. In a career, you can be two or three degrees off course and walk into a wall, instead of through a doorway. You don't have to be far off to have it fail.

   Career unhappiness often results from lack of focus, and lack of focus stems from limited self-knowledge. But self-knowledge takes time, introspection, and effort. So it's easy to avoid.

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3. Inches make champions. —Vince Lombardi

   Under Vincent Thomas Lombardi's direction, the Green Bay Packers collected six division titles, five NFL championships, two Super Bowls, and record of 98-30-4. Lombardi knew a lot about winning. If football is a game of inches, so is career success. In the competitive world, you seldom win by a landslide.

   Buzz Sullivan, my high school diving coach, told me, "A champion is someone who goes so far they can't go another inch—and then they go that inch." I wondered why that was important. Now I know. Winning in business or in personal life is all about inches: going small distances successfully, then going farther still.

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4. Nothing gold can stay. —Robert Frost

   We are swamped in change. And we had better get used to it, or at least figure out how to deal with it. In our parents' day, career change was uncommon. The norm was lifetime employment. Now CAREER = CHANGE. You'll have five careers in a lifetime, maybe six. Perhaps you'll do part-time, project, interim, or consulting work. And even if you're in your ideal dream job today, that might change tomorrow. Nothing gold can stay.

   Martin Bucco taught English literature at Colorado State University, and first brought my attention to what words could mean. Bucco spoke of what he called "the great dead minds," those who have come before us and written their thoughts. He also said, "Time in life is short. You can only read so many books, so choose wisely." We spent many classes unwrapping Robert Frost's genius, and this is one of the poems that hit home:

   NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY — by Robert Frost

   Nature's first green is gold,
   Her hardest hue to hold.
   Her early leaf's a flower;
   But only so an hour.
   Then leaf subsides to leaf.
   So Eden sank to grief,
   So dawn goes down to day.
   Nothing gold can stay.

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5. Work is love made visible. —Kahlil Gibran

   About 80% of people are unhappy at work, and 20% are happy. Our culture has separated work from passion, and taught us to prefer a higher paycheck to higher happiness. That mistake costs us our souls. The goal of career development is to uncover one's gifts and passions, and to link them to the practical needs of the world. We call that "being in the right place," "finding a good fit," or "making the best use of one's talents."

   In What Color Is Your Parachute? my mentor, Dick Bolles, quotes Fred Buechner, who writes, "There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work . . . (and) the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." [2001 Edition, page 57.]

   High compensation and high happiness are not incompatible. It's not that we shouldn't seek money, and lots of it; many of our clients do. But we should first seek to love, or at least to like, what we're doing. That's the realization of our highest calling.

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6. No great thing is created suddenly. —Epictetus (A.D.200)

   We live in a McDonald's culture. We want everything instantly and without effort. And we bristle when others around us appear to be getting more, sooner. Waiting for rewards or results is out of favor. It is so uncool.

   Many things are created suddenly: the two-day house makeovers on HOME & GARDEN TELEVISION, for example, but they aren't great. They are adequate, functional, or practical improvements. Greatness requires thought and time, effort and sacrifice. Especially sacrifice.

   Stellar careers aren't built overnight. Take the orthopedic surgeon, whose education extends 15 years past high school. Take the country western star on Grand Ole' Opry. Take the NFL quarterback or wide receiver, the CEOs, CFOs, and Vice Presidents of brand-name companies. Think about Edison, Einstein, or Galileo, or anyone else you might admire. None of them got there overnight.

   Great careers are built upon hundreds of thousands of small efforts, undertaken daily, that eventually grow into a series of satisfying wins. An ad for Paul Masson Vineyards picturing a bottle of wine said, "Nothing good happens fast." I framed it, and hung it in my office.

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7. Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin

   This is a variation on "Actions speak louder than words" and on Shakespeare's superb quote, "Talkers are no good doers." An executive search consultant who recruited 500 bank presidents told me, "There are two kinds of candidates: tap dancers and superstars. Tap dancers go through the motions and superstars get the work done. I recruit the superstars."

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8. No wind favors he who has no destined port. —Montaigne

   The cliche, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there," is valid. And many careers are broken by lack of direction. Corporations define this concept as having a mission or vision, and organizations lacking vision usually flounder. "Career Planning" speaks to the idea of creating a blueprint for your future. That is, having a goal, a destined port—fulfilling your destiny. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advised us to "Begin with the end in mind."

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9. Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Seneca

   I've been there. You've been there. Sometimes life is hard. You hit a career roadblock or dead end. Nothing seems to be working. You're fired or laid off. Or worse yet, you and your spouse are both unemployed. It happens. And it happens more frequently than you might imagine, to good people, qualified candidates, because of circumstances beyond their control. I like Churchill's words, "Never give in, never, never, never, never; in nothing, great or small—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." And I especially like the quote by Edmund Burke, who said: "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."

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10. Do first things first, and second things not at all.
    —Peter Drucker.

    It's so easy to do what's familiar, comfortable, or fun. It's so difficult, sometimes, to tackle the highest priority. And sometimes it's difficult to even know your top priorities; hence, the phrase, "I can't see the forest for the trees."

    We suffer from over-choice: 67 varieties of toothpaste, 487 styles of shoes, 186 brands of cell phones with 137 telephone companies. We demand more variety than we could possibly need or want; and as a result, we get lost in options, opportunities, and choices. There are 87 varieties of lawyers, and 75 specialties inside medicine. The world of work can be a confusing landscape.

    When you're flooded with career possibilities, or "swimming up Niagara Falls," it's good to spend time answering questions like, "What is the best and highest use of my talents?" and, "How can I make a bigger impact?"

    If you can't establish clear career priorities by yourself, use friends and business acquaintances as a sounding board. They will want to help. Ask them to help you determine your "first things" and "second things." Or seek an outside coach or advisor to help you focus. Because if you don't know what your "first things" are, you simply can't do them FIRST.

Gone for Good – My Review

Actually, I’ve been quite lazy. After Blink, I’ve finished another 4 books, but have been too lazy to write a review here! But after reading Gone for Good, there is absolutely no chance that I escape writing one.

Among all the thriller books I’ve read, this one is quite at the top! And to think that I’ve not read any of Coben’s other books before!! While browsing through the bookstore, because I could find nothing else, I took a look at this one, and the reviews on the blurb caught attention.

Once I started reading, this one absolutely caught hold and made me finish it (took 2 days though).

Gone for Good is the story of two brothers – Ken and Will Klein. You can read an excerpt from Amazon here. I won’t divulge the plot, but here’s what made the book so irresistible.

Coben’s writing style – weaving between first person and third person is a real treat to read, and gets the reader truly absorbed into the story. As the book moves on, we suddenly realize that none our of normal ‘reader instincts’ are proving true! There are so many twists and turns all around, that it gets impossible to anticipate what’s coming next. After a while – once a few chapters are done – we actually give up guessing, and that makes the book even more interesting.

Another very interesting thing about the book is the way Coben takes us in and out of flashback. It is not like he finished the flashback and comes back to the future, but keeps weaving; and the effect is quite stunning. It is like the ‘need-to-know’ thing James Bond movies taught us! As the story moves on, we keep getting glimpses from the past of the characters which makes the story much more exciting.

If you are a fiction / thriller / action / crime genre aficionado, this is one book you should certainly not miss!

I’m hunting for Coben’s other books, but none seem available in our city! :(

It’s official – The Sun is out!!

All these days, I was still in a dilemma whether the Indian Recession has officially abated or not. That thought has been laid to a positive rest today, and yes, it is official that the Sun is out!!

Whatever people have written about in the business dailies, and whatever the finance minister has said in the budget, as citizens we all have our own calculations. We call them ‘inner voice’, but sometimes it takes something from the outside to trigger that voice. For me, it was a telephone call yesterday.

After all these months, I finally got a call from a financial company asking if I had need of a personal loan! For me, that is the end of recession!!

If you have a mobile phone (read as ‘if you are considered to be alive’), you would also have missed the fake politeness, the laughs that suddenly cut off when we picked up the call, the voices that tried to be confident, and the pressure evident on month-end calls (which by the way start from the 15th). Not one, but two calls came through yesterday from two different companies – both offering personal loans.

And then I saw a banner strung outside a major nationalized bank announcing that this is ‘Credit Card Utsav month’. Ah!

Finally, we got a call this morning at the office mentioning that a client wanted 5 executives to disburse small ticket loans in rural areas.

The Sun is out, and it is a-shining! How nice it is to look forward once again to bounced cheques, threatening calls, atrocious interest rates, rude customer service executives, streams of calls and messages, and so much more which I cannot recollect in this excitement! Actually, I am not being entirely cynical. If this is a solution to an awakening of spirits in the country (the human variety, I mean), and of a rekindling of the feel-good factor, the big comeback of retail credit is truly welcome!

Wear sunglasses (and get your do-not-disturbs activated) once more!

Next is this!

Ever since Aamir Khan started promoting the Samsung brand, there has been a lot of change the brand has undergone – and that is certainly something which would have been done wontedly by the company. Starting with Mobile Phones, the tech revolution was evident through all the launched products, and now it has finally reached Laptops.

To be honest, Samsung was never a hot favorite in laptop computers, and a lot of us (me included) would not even know that they were into this market! However, after seeing a review on a third party site, I realized that not only do they make laptops, but they have some amazing models in store.

I was actually searching for a mini-model which is quite the rage nowadays; and though I am convinced that no mini will survive with my horrendous usage, I still love to look around (as everyone does). The Samsung N110 is a mini laptop, yes, but it packs quite a punch. For instance, there is a 6-cell battery that  lasts for almost ten hours (and that is much more than my current LARGE laptop can take); a keyboard that is 93% the size of a large keyboard; integrated 1.3 mega pixel camera; and a 10.1” LED display. The weight of this little super star is just 1.26 Kgs and that is less than 40% the weight of a normal laptop.

I was also looking at other laptop options in the ‘mini’ category, and find that this one certainly is among the top options in the market today.

Guess Next is Samsung Laptops now!! If you have used / seen a Samsung Laptop, do share your opinion by commenting on this post.

Blink! – My Review.

Malcolm Gladwell is a genius.

It is extremely difficult to make science appealing to the layman, and there are only a couple of authors who can write science like a novel – without missing the point. The other writer I can think of in that genre is Bill Bryson; whose ‘A short history of nearly everything’ has taught me more about science than my school science textbooks! Anyway, that’s a different story.

Blink! – The power of thinking without thinking – is a book which takes us through something that we are all truly experts in – thin-slicing. This is the process of taking decisions in an extremely short duration of time, and if you think about it; each of us goes through that process several times in a day. This book analyzes this process of taking really fast decisions, and Gladwell guides us through the whole scientific jargon like a traffic constable at a busy junction. Another reason why I simply loved this book is because Blink! does not just talk about science – it is equally steeped in psychology, and that is an even more difficult topic to write a blockbuster about!

Malcolm Gladwell has written an earlier bestseller – The Tipping Point (which I have to read now) which is another book that takes the reader into the depths of the human mind without losing us!

Blink! is a book that reminded me several times that I am more than the average Joe – as a lot of things the author talks about were things I noticed at various situations. The book can do that to you – to make you feel really good (even the average Joe) by letting you know that you are an expert in psychology, an expert in decision making (unless you are autistic – about which there is an example in the book), an expert in thin-slicing, and so on.

Finally, a big thanks to the researchers whose findings are mentioned in the book – these guys (and gals) have spent countless hours in trying to decipher the strange ways our mind works, and if we are somewhat closer to the secrets of the mind, it is thanks to them. But Blink! will also tell you that there is a very long way to go yet in understanding the complete works of the human mind.

This is a book you simply have to read. If you are a fan of general writing or science, you will relish this book. If you are a fan of fiction (like me), you will still relish this book, and feel better for it.

Blink! – The power of thinking without thinking – is being adapted into a movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio, and is expected to be released in late 2010.

A Unique Phenomenon!

I was looking at some pictures from Santorini island in Greece, and one thing that struck me immediately was the very unique way of construction.

I don’t mean construction in terms of architecture or in terms of materials used. What we will notice is the unity in the people to preserve their heritage. Look at the picture here, and you will observe that the colors used by most of the people are white and blue.

For a very long time, the Greek isles have been synonymous with usage of Whites and Blues, and whether it is apartments, villas, or hotels, they all try and use these colors as much as possible. The effect that it gives is simply stunning! When one sees the white spires and blue domes rising over the deep blue of the Mediterranean, you simply can’t turn your eyes away! Search Google for more pics of these isles and you will notice that even from the pictures.

Now, coming to our part of the world, it is variety that rules! If my neighbor has painted his house Brown, I have to ensure that I paint it Green!! No two houses are in similar colors. With new colors including fluorescent ones popping up with alarming regularity in our streets, it is fair enough to say that we are at the other side of the world from Greece!! Everything – arches, materials used, colors, designs and even landscaping will be different from home to home in our region!

But in the picture, you will also notice that there is one single house (at the top right hand corner - in brown) that has begged to differ. It must have been built by an Indian!

The Accor City Super Sale - Is it the recession or what?

Hotels have been one of my primary interests ever since I got into Hotel Management several years ago. 

So whenever there is a banner ad or an article talking about something to do with hotels, my interest automatically gets piqued.

And this time, it is for an offer that can quite simply be termed as 'unbelievable'. Accor Hotels has been a world leader in business and luxury hotels for quite a while now, and the only thing that puts ordinary people off is the prices. We went for a dinner to Hyderabad Novotel a couple of years ago, and paid about 700/- per head for a simple dinner!!

Anyway, I got whiff of this new offer that Accor hotels was putting out, and after checking it out, I seriously am thrilled! So much that I had to blog about it.

This new 'City Super Sale' offer brings the prices down to between 1200/- (for an Accor hotel in Bangkok) to 6118/- to one in Vietnam. All Indian Accor hotels - Bangalore, Hyderabad, Gurgaon, Mumbai and Pune are priced at 2400/-. Chinese Accor hotels - in Beijing and Shanghai are even more affordable!

Is this the impact of the recession or is Accor trying to woo the low budget business traveler (which most of the people are nowadays)? Whatever the reason is, the offer is absolutely block-buster. Never a better time to travel in the Asia-Pacific region. Airline prices are at an all-time low, superb hotels are taking reservations for unbelievable prices, and the monsoon is just setting in! What are we waiting for??

Accor hotels include the Novotel, Sofitel, All seasons, and a few other brands.

Here's more information about the offer from the Accor website - City Super Sale.

Pragmatic fan-club!

One of the most awesome comments that I have seen in the recent times was on Rediff. In response to an article analyzing why India performed so dismally in the T-20 world cup, an avid fan finally burst out - ‘Now, let’s get back to work’!

In a Cricket crazy country like ours, it is absolutely safe to say that the average productivity per citizen has come down significantly over the last 2 months. IPL matches started at 3 pm and most of the people in my friends circle (including me) mentally shifted to the cricket pitch. Till the second match ended after midnight, there was no more changing of channels, and half the next day went discussing about the earlier days heroics (or otherwise).

I am a die-hard cricket fan too, and I firmly believe that I played a major role in Deccan Chargers lifting the IPL trophy. However, after the IPL ended and things got back to normal, the T-20 world cup began; and when India played Pakistan in the practice match, there was no emotion left to express! Though the stadium was full and the atmosphere on TV was charged, all of us at home slept off half way through, and when Pakistan won, it didn’t really matter! After the tournament began, the only match I really watched was India taking on West Indies (that too with red eyes and continuous worry about going to the office early next morning!).

After England ousted India out of the tournament, though there was a bit of sadness, there was also an element of relief. Since I did not actually watch the complete match, I was looking at Rediff the next morning and reading articles of Dhoni apologizing to the Indian fans, and Kirsten blaming the IPL for this sub-standard performance; the comment that actually encapsulated it all was of a regular reader finally exclaiming – Now, let’s back to work!

Seriously, let’s get back to work, and thank god that there’s no Cricket to be played in the next few weeks after this one. Meanwhile, I’m sure that our Mitochondria will get recharged and we’ll get back in passion for the next series against West Indies starting this month end.

But wait! There’s also the women’s T-20 world cup happening simultaneously in England and India is thru to the semis there. Wonder which channel that is being telecast on???

The Management Hype!

I was reading a book called ‘Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish’ written by an IIM Ahmedabad alumnus; which chronicles 25 success stories of people from the institute. One thing that is common to all of them is that they worked someplace before they became entrepreneurs.

Why I thought about this is because there is a strange thing going on in today’s world, and I’m pretty disturbed by that. Look at the sheer number of management colleges coming through every year, and you will know the reason of my distress. Not that I have anything against these new (and several old) management colleges, but I seriously feel that the purpose is defeated.

In Andhra Pradesh (and many more states in our country), the same precedent has already been set by Engineering colleges. Today, most of the engineers graduating from our region (85165 seats in Engineering colleges according to 2008 count – source – indiastudychannel.com) are counted just as graduates; and the same phenomenon is happening with MBA and MCA colleges now. Afterall, how many MBAs can a region support?

In these times of corporate cutbacks, most of the graduates will not be able to find good employment. And a majority of them will look to study further. The bulk of that majority will get into MBA colleges, and what I am worried about (not personally, but still…) is about what most of those people will do once they post-graduate! Already many management passouts are out competing with graduates for the few choice jobs available in the markets (and most of the times it is the under graduates that walk away with the jobs) and that is cause for angst! Think about what will happen 2 years later, when all these MBAs getting enrolled now will come out qualified!!

The other part of the hype (and my concern) is the amounts being charged. All of the new management colleges I know of are charging upwards of a lakh rupees each year, in spite of having no track record to boast of. Few colleges that have started last year have already decided to hike the fee by 50% this year for this years intake; and that, according to me is pretty ambitious. When new management colleges are charging those kind of monies, the older ones naturally will look to charge higher, and any decent college worth its name will already get you to fork out over 5 lakhs for the 2 years. What they will do in the next couple of years is anyone’s guess.

I firmly believe that like in the USA (and some of the best colleges in India), MBA should only be done after a couple of years of working. Afterall, the 25 stories mentioned in the book are all of people who’ve turned entrepreneur after working for a few years with some of the best companies around. Else, MBAs also will just become like a general graduation course; albeit a very costly one!

Is this just my perception?

Trial Post from Live Writer!

This one is brand new, and I never knew something like this existed!

No more logging on to the internet to blog. Live Writer – which is a part of the Office 2007 pack is just the right tool to blog right form your computer. It works with WordPress, Blogger, Typepad and other popular blogging platforms too, and I am tremendously excited :)

Will see if there is an option of even scribbling offline so that when I go online next, it is automatically uploaded!

Office 2007 rocks!

Accidental revenue!

Over the last few weeks, I have become pretty interested in site flipping, domain name trading, and earning passive revenue from websites. I'm not directly involved with it, but am doing research on the topic and writing up the findings for a client.

While I found quite a few very surprising things in the process, one of the strangest things that I found was that the business of 'accidental revenue' is extremely robust.

Have you heard of Sedo? or how about NameMedia and GoDaddy?

All of these online companies do domain registering, forwarding, web hosting, domain auctioning, reselling, and much more. But what we want to talk about is Parking. No, it is not the regular parking that you have heard of - if you park your car, you need to pay a parking fee. If you park your domain with one of these providers, you will earn revenue - most of it accidental.

Let's say you have a domain name which you have registered, but are not making into a website immediately, you can park it for free with Sedo, and they will in turn create a landing page for your domain name. So if someone searches for that particular website (oh yes - it happens quite often), or just stumbles on it through a link, there is nothing there but a series of links and ads to related topics. For instance, www.freefonetones.com and www.10cate.com are just 2 of thousands of thus parked domain names. If you visit them, you will see a huge list of related ads, and you will also find a link if you are interested to buy that domain name. Now, who will exactly go to 10cate.com? You will be surprised to find that there are thousands of people who actually go there! Take a look at the stats there!

Another example is www.yellowmangoes.com. Though it does not have an ad page like the one above, it is parked for free by GoDaddy, and there is a link there that people can use if they are interested in buying the domain name.

These domain names actually count on us to make mistakes so that we stumble onto them. Instead of typing microsoft.com, if you type in www.macrosoft.com, you will be led onto yet another Sedo parked page displaying ads and a 'buy' button!!

If you are thinking how many mistakes can we make? Think again!

According to stats, NameMedia reported a revenue of over $ 60 million generated from people clicking ads on domains parked by them in 2006-07! That is a lot of typos and a lot of foolishness on our part, isn't it? However, the Silver Lining is that we don't need to pay any money for that! The advertising companies pay out that money for our clicks. How many of those are genuine clicks, no one knows! 

But still, there is a lot of accidental revenue going around :) Quite interesting!

Micro Blogging - No longer 'ouch'!

The word 'Micro Blogging' has been doing the rounds for quite some time now, but the impact of it did not strike me till a couple of days ago.

Every other day, I (and I am sure that you too) receive requests from some or the other known or obscure social networking sites, mentioning that some friend added our mail IDs to their account.

Till last week, I used to wonder - do people really have the time to go into all those networking sites, and even if they do, what purpose does it serve?

Now, that question has become obsolete, as I've realized that Micro Blogging has taken over the regular social networking stuff. If you are not yet there, don't worry - you will soon get there.

The micro blogging revolution is led by the ubiqutous 'Twitter', which has become much more than a craze with the online generation. If you have not yet got onto Twitter, you will find it a real revelation when you do - there's just one column for you to enter an answer into - What are you doing now. That one question is to be answered in less than 140 characters (you're right - that is to enable twitter mobile users to see that as one regular size sms)! No wonder that the trend is called micro-blogging!

Wikipedia defines Micro blogging as 'a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia through means of photos and audio clips, and publish them'. Will you be very surprised if I told you that there is a new service which allows users to communicate through short videos that are 10 seconds in length??

In the initial days, I used to think that this is taking a good thing (social networking) too far. However, I realize that I am wrong, and that micro blogging is truly here to stay. And it is not too easy either! Try communicating through a 140 character message! And another thing that I used to wonder about is how much of 'staying in touch do you need'. If this question has popped into your mind too, congratulations - we have just been classified officially as 'old'. For the new gen, apparently there is nothing called 'too much in contact'. In fact, our earlier generation used to look down on us when we scrapped throgh Orkut once or twice a week, remember? 

So, when a friend sends you a request to join FaceBook or some other old-age service, send him a short sms - wr hv u bn?

If you are seriously into micro, do let me know if you think it'll continue or is just a fad.

The Wonder Years Nostalgia!

'Growing up happens in a heartbeat. One day you are in diapers, next day you are gone'. One of those dialogues that I can never forget. This one is from the finale of my all-time favorite TV shows - The Wonder Years.

Most of us who've grown up in the 90's in India would remember this amazing series running on Star World (I think).

And in India, cable TV was brand new for us. I remember that in '89 or '90, for the first time we had the Star channels beaming down, and one of the first shows that I saw on TV was this. The other one is 'Small Wonder' but I guess age had a lot to do with why we were all so addicted to the Wonder years.

In school, we had recess break discussions about the day's happenings between Kevin and Winnie, and the girls actually used to get emotional whenever these two had a fight! Especially during summer vacation, Star used to run daily episodes of the show in the mornings - around 10am  if I'm right. It was like a generation thing - getting packets of Uncle Chips, a Pepsi, and sitting in front of the TV just before the starting credits rolled. From 10 to 1030 nothing else could be planned, and if dad did, he had to go it alone! Though in India things are not that fast in the school years, it made a lot of sense because the show was dated back to about 20 years. So Kevin was a schoolboy in the 70's according to the show, and quite a few things made sense :)

One of the key regrets I've got is that most of the early episodes and quite a few of the ones in between got lost out in between. By the time Star TV came to Visakhapatnam into our locality, the show was already running - and I finished school before the show ended. But thanks to the Internet, I can catch up on all those episodes now!! Will get the chips and Pepsi out once more!

Till then, here's the final episode from YouTube. If you were a fan of this all-time-hit series, you will enjoy the nostalgia too!

The best place to compare laptops!

Almost everyone in my circle of friends is either looking to buy a laptop or to upgrade the one they currently have! Like the Americans always talk about the weather when they meet, in India nowadays we talk about Laptop computers and high end mobile phones.

But the opinion that everyone gives is totally in contrast.  When one guy says Toshiba laptops are good, one more says that HP are better. While one wants us to go with the new Acer Aspire, one more swears by the service back up of HP.

I have also been in this rut for quite a while now. I've been wanting to know if shifting to a Mac would be suitable for my kind of a requirement.

That is when I came across Consumer Mate. Consumer Mate is a new offering from the 9.9 media group, the same company which manages top magazines like Digit, Skoar, and many more. I remember buying early versions of Digit just so I could know about the different new gadgets coming into the market. So, when I want to compare laptop prices and other features, this seemed to be the best place to do that.

When you visit the site, you will see some great features like hot deals from leading sellers, a comparision between all laptop computer brands and many more. But what I loved the best was a certification from one of the country's leading testing centers - Digit Test Center. It's free to use and I'm sure that anyone who's interested in Laptops will love this site. 

Check it out!

Weather - always the weather!! (and Khai Muk!)

There are a few things that absolutely don't make sense. And one of them is the American obsession with the weather.

Now, I live in India, and have never been to the USA, but since there are dozens and dozens of people who each of us know, who have gone there and been back, you can't avoid the weather.

I spoke to a friend recently for about 30 mins in all, and over 15 mins of that call was dedicated to the weather. Each time I tried bringing him around to something else, he would get back there! And the funny thing is that it is not about the weather in America (typically someone who comes back after a while would begin every other sentence with 'In the USA....'). We were discussing about the weather in Bangalore and in Visakhapatnam!! Now, one question would have been enough - is it too hot there? or did it rain recently? But no!

Every other sentence the weather had to be brought in.

The famous writer Samuel Johnson remarked - 'It is commonly observed that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm'! It seems that is not just true for Englishmen now.

It is true! When we meet someone, we say - 'too hot today' or something like that, and that serves as a conversation starter.

Is it because there is so little in common that all of us have? Why can't we speak about our own lives or something worthwhile? Already the time that we spend communicating with friends and family is depleted. Once in a while when we get connected, half that time goes blaming the sun god or the rain god, and we end up disconnecting the call all too soon!

Going back to my friend, the final question he asked me was 'Did Khai Muk affect Vizag?'

I pride myself on keeping abreast of all the happenings around the country and the world; and where did this terrorist organization spring up from in my backyard and I did not even know about it!!

Now, Khai Muk is no terrorist organization! It apparently is the name of the latest cyclone to hit the Bay of Bengal, and my friend was astonished to know that I did not know it - in spite of living next to the coast! In our country, we just say 'Did the cyclone hit your city'. We don't call cyclones with names, do we?

Trust the weather to dampen your spirits!!

The Associate - My Review

Like millions of people out there, I am an avid fan of Grisham, and have devoured every single novel he's penned. The Rainmaker introduced me to the legal world, and thanks to him, I now pick up most of the courtroom dramas I see on the bookshelves - irrespective of the author.

When Grisham shifted into non-courtroom sagas, I went over too, and books like Skipping Christmas went much-loved (you can read my review of that book here).

Anyway, when our bookstore announced the arrival of a new Grisham legal thriller, I literally ran over, and picked up a copy. As usual, I won't divulge the plot, but there are some things which should be mentioned.

The break that Grisham took from writing legal stuff clearly shows in this book, and you can't actually call this a pure courtroom saga. Though the protagonist is a lawyer (freshly out of college, which is a Grisham standard), and he works in a firm that bills mega $$$ every hour, The Associate can't actually be called a pure legal thriller.

It is a borderline thriller alright, but one of blackmail. This story could have been written by anyone, and the hero also could have been in any profession. So, if you are looking to get this one for Grisham's specialty in writing legal, you are in for a disappointment. The actual plot is seemingly flimsy, but holds together purely on the merit of Grisham's expertise.

Now for a couple of positives - this is the first novel in which Grisham almost openly condemns the practice of unethical billing that are commonplace in most of the mega firms of today. There are quite a few occasions in which he takes them on in the form of Kyle Mc.Avoy - The Associate. Another good thing is the tacit story telling - which is Grisham's strength really - and where he does not introduce unnecessary characters just for the sake of it.

Over everything else, the ending disappoints big time! As I read the book, I thought of a dozen different endings as i went on, but the ending is a real let down! If there ever were a squibber, this is the one. 

All true Grisham fans will anyway read this book. If you are borderline fan, pick something else. Though the book is ok, it is certainly not Grisham standard.

Shamelessness has a new address!

With the elections literally around the corner, everyone has some kind of an opinion to offer. Every single person I meet has a different survey result with him and predicts a different count altogether! Anyway, this blog post is not to talk about the outcome of the elections, but the blatant shamelessness I just witnessed.

I have nothing against any political party - and I would rather vote for a person rather than a party. However, I just saw this ad on a website and could not help but be amazed. With Advaniji's blog becoming very popular (www.lkadvani.in), every politician worth his salt has created an online version of himself, and the same for parties too. I just saw a banner ad of the Congress party linking to the website of the party, and the mesages flashing across the banner actually made me think about this post's title. Here are the 3 things the ad talks about

1. Nuclear Energy
2. Voting rights for the youth
3. Mission Chandrayaan

Now, the first one is atleast ok - taking into consideration the fact that Manmohanji just managed to scrape through; and the energy won't be visible for atleast another 10 years - if everything goes to plan and the Congress remains in power!

The second one actually made me laugh. Voting rights for the youth?? What did the ad maker think? What is the role of the Congress is getting people to tide over the age of 18 so that they can become part of the electoral rolls? Voting rights for the youth indeed! Ouch!

And Mission Chandrayaan is the height. When did the project for Mission Chandrayaan start? To be precise, the announcement was made in Jan 2004, and the planning was going on much before that. Congress came to power in May 2004, and they shamelessly claim credit for Chandrayaan?? 

There is yet another feather in the cap of stupidity for this government. I saw a TV ad last night, which said - 'Help India become strong against terrorism. Weeding out the terrorists is only possible with the Congress in power'. God Save India! Is the Congress so horribly short of election promises that it blatantly lifts the slogans from the BJP and others? And any literate Indian will know that the reason why Terrorism is so rampant today is because of the shamefully weak government at the centre.

Now tell me - is the title of this post wrong? The Congress has just slipped down a couple more notches in my survey!

The sky is falling?

Cheif Vitalstatistix from the Asterix comics has only one mortal fear - That the sky will fall on his head tomorrow. 

It is this fear that he has been living with, and since tomorrow never comes, he and the rest of the famous gauls are all safe (except from the dreadful singing of Cacafonix).

Now, why are we talking of this gleeful chief now?

Every day for the last couple of months, I have been meeting people who are Indian (and a few foreign) personifications of the cartoon. No offense meant, but most of those people seem caught up in the 'recession' fever, much like the man on top of the shield is caught up on the sky falling over his head.

Now, it is not that there is no recession; but atleast in our part of the world, things are not as bad as they are put to be. 

Sure, some sectors have been hit, and there are going to be a few more that are going to be hit badly in the coming months. But then, is this something new to us? If we call India the IT capital of the world, or atleast the outsourcing capital of the world, we have already been through 2 'slowdowns' in the last ten years since the sector has started in the country.

In the year 2002, the chips were so down that large companies - both in the Silicon Valley and in India had to close down or turn to their BPO divisions to scrape through. But after the slowdown, we have had a speed up of unforseen proportions! Millions of people became millionaires on the stock market, and tens of millions of people suddenly became the 'hip and happening' IT crowd all across the country. If you were not in software, you were not fit to be a part of the marriage market anymore! Banks ran behind these guys and behind the infrastructure companies to give loans of unheardof capitalizations!

Anyway, like the old Red Indian saying, 'What goes up comes down' and the higher they jump, the harder they fall. If you think honestly, did people not know that this was going to come to a more realistic and stable phase? Are we fools enough to invest in the stock market when it was at 21000 expecting it to cross 50000 (many of us apparently were)? Some genuises gave predictions that the Indian stock market would cross 50000! God save India!!

There I go again!

Coming back on track, the recession is not actually a recession. Like the analysts say to appease their viewers, this is a 'correction', and something that needs to happen once in a while so that other sectors come to the fore. Nature's balance is a phenomenal thing, and if there are too many rats running around, the cat should be let out. (Bad analogy!! I Know; but you get the point don't you?)

Every other person I meet talks about the recession coming in and hitting his business! This is like a lovely story we read while we were kids. 

One guy had a sweet shop and was doing great business. With the money he earned, he sent his son to IIM-A, and during his vacation, the son went home. One day, while sitting at the shop, the son told the father - Dad, recession is coming, we need to cut costs and focus on our core competency. Let's not spend money, and wait till the recession tides over. Poor dad agreed with his IIM son, and stopped giving offers. He stopped advertising, and started turning off lights to save power. He reduced the number of sweets being made, and the display cases started looking drab and empty. Footfalls into the shop reduced and in a couple of weeks, business was terrible. Dad looked at son and said 'thank god that you warned me in advance; else I would have been doomed".

Strikes a chord, doesn't it? 

The sky is not falling! Recession or 'slowdowns' are a part of our economic radar, and if Warren Buffet can be confident of tiding this over after losing billions of dollars in the last few months, what are we?

Cheer up! Read a few Asterix comics if you'd like. As they don't say, The chief is not always right!

The abuse of adjectives!

How much of the news on TV is actually 'Breaking'?

How can every performance become 'Amazing'?

How can every government be the 'Worst'?

Who ever invented adjectives would surely be turning over and over in his grave!

It is so confusing to note that every single description becomes superlative. What has ever happened to the other degrees of comparision in English?

Actually, this article is targeted at myself. I just realized that I have been using adjectives left, right, and centre without actually thinking whether they are apt. The simple rule is that the sentence should stick - that's it! And not just me, everyone in sales will agree that the usage of superlatives is the most common way to go. Recently, we saw a small road side dhaba which advertised that it sold the 'Best Punjabi food in India'! There are thousands of brands which give you the 'Best value for your money! There are dozens of 'Simply the best's' around. 

Now, this usage of adjectives is not meant to be grammatically correct. It is just that it needs to be there - that's all.

Writing sales copy has become so much a part of life that everyday English also has taken the same form. A movie is either extra-ordinary or is horrendous. There is a vague 'alright' in between, and all the other adjectives can go take a hike.

The difference between synonymous words such as 'Excellent, Marvellous, Extra-ordinary, Outstanding, Superb, Stupendous, Ultimate, Amazing, Spectacular, Fabulous, Fantastic, Tremendous, Exceptional, Magnificent' and such words has become so blurred that dictionaries should consider taking off some of the words - since they anyway don't mean anything different! 

It is probably because of this merging of words that the first degree words are making a serious come back. Simple words come with a pre or a post script and they become the best adjective. Phrases like 'Seriously Good' and 'Beautiful, really!' have gained a better value than the flowery words mentioned above.

With everything becoming sensational, this can only go one way! God save us from our English!!