Random Thoughts

Its 3 am and I can't sleep....

2011-10-16T10:19:00.006+05:30

Its been a while since I updated my blog, partly because much of what i write has moved to Facebook. But at the end of the day, Facebook is something in between twitter and a blog, a place for people with ADHD, where status updates, reposted media etc. Flash for a while and then goes down the list, lost forever. I find it hard to write anything there beyond a paragraph.......then again, perhaps no one reads beyond a paragraph. My observations is that most people who subscribe to my email group do not read any of it. Hell, I do not read many of the things I am subscribed to. So its time to update the good old BLOG. I start with a cut and paste from a letter I sent to a former student (lady) who told me that she had trouble getting over a relationship. I know the lady and have been in touch with her for a while.....

Dear Sir,

It's again me...3am in the morning but i cant sleep,few days in a row
same thing keeps happening-sleepless night with all its
consequences-worrying,not finding my place,the past gets back to me
with all questions that will never get answers,work related issues am
facing now etc etc... Altogether its becoming too much,i feel i cant
take it any more but i have to..i am so tired..i need a break, a
change, fresh breath of air and HOPE FAITH that smth will change for
better,that everything gonna be alright...

Tara

Dear Tara (Name Obviously Changed)

I understand what you are going through. I even know WHY you are feeling that way. Unfortunately that's the easy part.

You have a low self esteem, hence to you the feeling of being appreciated is very important and precious. That is what you seek in relationships. However because it is so important to you, every relationship is under a microscope to see if the other person values you ENOUGH. This is true of both personal and professional relationships.

This also means that you are not very affected by friendships and casual relationships because they don't care / matter ENOUGH. However there are few if any relationships that can stand up to such intense scrutiny, and hence your exercise is doomed to fail. No one can give you self esteem, but yourself, though we seek it in others.

This also why you feel so insecure about your future. In this case what I normally do is to think of the worst case scenario and prepare for it. However i will still continue trying for the best! Be prepared for the worst, but expect the best. Easier said than done.

Self esteem will never come from other people appreciating you, there are enough film stars who will vouch for that. It will only come when you stop looking at yourself from the outside:... judging, evaluating, etc., and you start living from the inside, where life and everything in it, is a great fun game. Yes it has its ups and downs like any game has. But if you can turn life into a game, you will realize that at the end of the game, we all leave this world empty handed. So in the long run the only thing that matters is a GAME WELL PLAYED.

Unfortunately, making that transition is hard and often can only come through PAINFUL realization that other options end up in a dead end.

I wish I could help you more, but i too don't know how. I think Life is the greatest teacher.

A theory of surplus

2011-08-28T06:13:00.003+05:30

I have no idea why people come to me with the question "How do I make money?". Let me be upfront.. I HAVE NO IDEA. Now if you ask me "Why do I need money?" or "How can I live without it?" "Or even "Why do we need money?"I would find it more interesting....

When we buy or sell something we do not pay for just the thing we are buying, we pay a little extra, a surplus. This is profit. One could say a profit is the cost of someone's time and effort to bring this product to me. Money paid so that tradespeople can also feed their families. This brings us to the question, just how much surplus is enough? This becomes a difficult question to answer hence we default to the answer "As much as possible!". In fact sometimes it appears that the very reason why business exists, is to generate a surplus. This is like saying I work 10 hours a day to earn a Living. Where do you have time to live when you EARN A LIVING like that? Perhaps an interesting question is not how do i find business opportunities to earn more, but how do I learn to live on less?

Living to create surplus is like saying the purpose of eating is to create left-overs.

802.11 :MURDER

2011-08-20T14:50:00.002+05:30

HOW TO KILL A PERSON REMOTELY...

Step 1. Figure out the serial Number and Manufacturer of his pacemaker/insulin pump

Step 2. Gather as much information as possible about the software
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Step 3. Get the mac and ip address of a wifi router close to the person.

Step 4. Hack into the device and change the dose

Step 5. Read the obituaries the next day!!

For more information, go to http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCZN9AxsYSOvytRWcmsoQHXdh_2w?docId=13ee3a6c4c164ac0b39cc3dc7e562544

An Apology...

2011-08-19T09:32:00.002+05:30

Today I wrote an email to a friend. I have made this "MISTAKE" so many times that I thought it would be a good idea to publish this on my blog so I can send a link every time I want to write this email...

----------------------------------------------------
Hi,

I haven't got any response from you. I do hope that you are not avoiding me like the plague now. Please take it easy. I am NOT desperately knocking at you door for help. I have my own agenda and my own things to do, but I like sharing my ideas cos you never know where it will will click with a like-minded soul. So even if you do not want to discuss business with me, do stay my friend?

-----------------------------------------------------

I have many friends who tell me i should NOT discuss business until it is up and running. I wonder what is wrong if I do? Well they tell me that other people will laugh at me for having ideas and not making them real. I am HAPPY if I can give people reason to laugh about. I really don't care about appearing "successful", not at this level anyway.

SO if you get a business proposal or an attempt to discuss business... if you are not interested...at least have a good laugh!!

On a wet morning...

2011-08-11T09:46:00.003+05:30

I decided to upload some pictures.

signs of the times

2011-06-12T13:01:00.002+05:30

Kerala's roads are notorious for accidents. A major reason for this is road rage caused by gridlocked roads even in non-peak hours. The reason for this? Increasing vehicular traffic without an increase in road surface area. This in turn is due to the high cost of real estate whether it be urban or rural. The high cost in real estate is driven by the fact that a large number of keralites (mallus) live outside kerala but still want to own home / property (Mannu) in Kerala. Of course this drives up INVESTMENT based demand too. Thankfully the gridlock means that the rate of high-velocity accidents is very low.

Add to this is the strange method of rewarding drivers of commercial vehicles like buses and tipper lorries. They are put on a VERY strict time table where they have to reach points at pre-fixed intervals, which in turn is not possible during gridlock. This means that they drive like crazy whenever they have a chance to. Its amazing to see this large vehicles careening through small spaces and regardless of the risk they pose, I must say these guys are some drivers.

KSRTC (Kerala Road Transport Corporation) public buses are a breed unto themselves. They hug the centre of the road, making it impossible to overtake them on the right. Hence the need for this innovative sign on the bus!

I remember, a friend once told me that traffic in every country, even every city has its own FLAVOUR. The flavour of traffic in kerala is HOT and SPICY.......ROAD RAGE, here I come!

How to insure your business

2011-05-05T09:50:00.002+05:30

Today I did a bit of research and I thought it would be useful to put up what I learnt. Of course, it isnt new... but then again I am sure it may be new to many of us.

We run a small homestay business in kerala, www.fennhall.in . And we recently wrote to Mahindra Homestays ( www. mahindrahomestays.com ) to see if we could get it listed in their product catalogue. They wrote back giving their terms and conditions. What is most interesting is that as the owners are free to sell our services directly to customers as long as we do not undercut the Mahindra pricing. However if we DO get customers through Mahindra then we owe them a 30% cut, which seems to be reasonable marketing expense. Of course there is a sign up fee, which covers the cost of the documentation, photographs and listing per se....all in all a good partnership model.

As part of their requirements we are required to take up an insurance to cover risks. Though I have been an entrepreneur for a while now, I never took Business Insurance seriously, so I did a bit of research...here is what I found out..

Business Insurance

Basics of insurance for your business - http://newsandreviews.in/?p=4991

About Public Liability - http://www.ehow.com/public-liability-insurance/

Note there are three basic forms of Public Liability Insurance

Public Liability Insurance (Industrial) - for manufacturing units
Public Liability Insurance (Non-Industrial) - for hotels, hospitals, clubs, etc.
Public Liability Insurance (act only) - insurance that covers the PL Act 1991 (read below)
Public Liability Insurance (add on) - these policies give added cover based on our requirements

The Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 - http://www.lawyersclubindia.com/bare_acts/Public-Liability-Insurance-Act-848.asp

........Now you know enough to get started with your own research on the topic.

Philosophy of Science

2011-04-30T12:02:00.003+05:30

Hi,

I have been reading a book by one of my favourite authors, Hans-Georg Gadamer, it is called "The Enigma of Health". I thought it would be fun to share a few quotes that I found interesting. Gadamer starts with telling us the difference between a science and its application. Science, he says was initially tied to the practical situation as was the maths of Pythagoras and others. The early Greek philosophers took it and made it into a body of knowledge that we can pursue not to solve a problem but to improve our knowledge of the world.

By the 17th century science become something else altogether. Science, which started off as being consolidated practice now became a body of knowledge that is not derived from direct experience, but because of a set of relationships between concepts which we use to build a model of the world, then we PROJECT certain parts of it on to the world.

Hence what is the relationship between a science and its practice? The scientist would agree that the practice is far from perfect but that is because science is as yet incomplete. The hope is that one day science will be able to say exactly what to use and when. Hence the progress of science will mean that the ambiguity of its use will be wiped clean.

But is this so? When a doctor decides on what sort of expensive tests to do? Or what decides which is the best building at a location?

The quote:

Is the application of science as such practice?

Is all practice the application of science?

Even if the application of science enters into all practice, the two are still not identical. For practice means not only the making of whatever one can make; it is also choice and decision between possibilities. Practice always has a relationship to a person's 'being'.

Note:
This is why my professional work is aimed at "Knowledge Management", cos knowledge by itself is not enough........being matters too.

The Nokia C3-01 Way

2011-04-13T08:45:00.006+05:30

I recently bought a Nokia C3-01. I am not going to do a review of the product, such things are available elsewhere. This is actually more about OVI. I find for most interactions between my computer and the phone I need Microsoft Windows (NOT STARTER EDITION)....obviously not useful for me and my family that runs with UBUNTU. Once I have opened an OVI account I can export my data there. But once it reaches there, I cannot export it in ANY FORMAT!

Now with the partnership between microsoft and nokia... i guess thats another brand I will soon be getting out of.

My next problem was getting it to sync with Google Calendar. This was easy enough a couple of years ago with my previous nokia phone. Why was it not possible now? To set it up I found that I had to go put in a new setting in / Settings / configuration / Personal Settings. This was not clear from the documentation so i had to go to this link that told me how to configure it for an Nokia X3.

Then I found that Google had stopped support for SyncML. Now that was a real bummer. I found the way to solve this was to work around with a thirdparty like http://www.syncme.se or other such programs. Finally got it to sync. GRRRRRR

Asura's and Devas in IRAN

2011-03-31T09:23:00.003+05:30

I recently did a bit of reading up on Zorashtrian Faith and I found these entries from Wikipedia interesting (authenticity is, as is usual with wikipedia, uncertain, but its a good starting point for thinking)...

Zaratustra lived sometime between the 18th and 6th century BC!

The date of Zoroaster, i.e., the date of composition of the Old Avestan gathas, is unknown. Scholarly mainstream opinion mostly places him near the 11th or 10th century BCE, but dates proposed in scholarly literature diverge widely, between the 18th and 6th centuries BCE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroaster

The Old Iranian Religion worshipped many gods called daevas, along with three greater gods......

At the age of 30, Zoroaster received a revelation. While Zoroaster was fetching water from dawn for a sacred ritual, he saw the shining figure of the yazata, Vohu Manah who led Zoroaster to the presence of Ahura Mazda, where he was taught the cardinal principles of the Good Religion. As a result of this vision, Zoroaster felt that he was chosen to spread and preach the religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda#Zoroaster.27s_revelation

Arrival of the Parsi in India circa 10th Cent AD

All estimates are based on the Qissa, which is vague or contradictory with respect to some elapsed periods. Consequently, three possible dates - 936 AD, 765 AD and 716 AD - have been proposed as the year of landing...

"Parsi legends regarding their ancestors' migration to India depict a beleaguered band of religious refugees escaping the harsh rule of fanatical Muslim invaders in order to preserve their ancient faith."...

the immigrants were granted permission to stay by the local ruler Jadi Rana on the condition that they adopt the local language (Gujarati), that their women adopt local dress (the sari) and that they henceforth cease to bear arms (. The refugees accepted the conditions and founded the settlement of Sanjan, which is said to have been named after the city of their origin (Sanjan, near Merv, in present-day Turkmenistan).....

The Sanjan Zoroastrians were certainly not the first Zoroastrians on the subcontinent. Sindh and Balochistan had once been the eastern-most territories of the Sassanid (226-651 AD) empire, which consequently maintained military outposts there. Even following the loss of these territories, the Iranians continued to play a major role in the trade links between the east and west, and in the light of Brahmanical discouragement of trans-oceanic voyages, which Hindus then regarded as polluting, it is likely that Iranians maintained trading posts in Gujarat as well. The 9th century Arab historiographer al-Masudi briefly notes Zoroastrians with fire temples in al-Hind and in al-Sindh. Moreover, for the Iranians, the harbors of Gujarat lay on the maritime routes that complemented the overland Silk road and there were extensive trade relations between the two regions. The contact between Iranians and Indians was already well established even prior to the Common Era, and both the Puranas and the Mahabharata use the term Parasikas to refer to the peoples west of the Indus river.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parsi#Arrival_in_Gujarat

Asura God

"Ahura" was originally an adjective meaning ahuric, characterizing a specific Indo-Iranian entity named Asura. Although traces of this figure are still evident in the oldest texts of both India and Iran, in both cultures the word eventually appears as the epithet of other divinities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahura_Mazda#Nomenclature

What every man thinks of apart from sex

2011-03-11T08:17:00.005+05:30

Last week saw a surprise hit on the best-seller list in the UK. Now I know the argument that best-sellers do not necessarily reflect good writing, just that it is popular but this 200 page is definitely worth looking into. The book represents an interesting NEW kind of emerging media that has been shaped by sms and twitter.

Read about the book here. http://www.rediff.com/getahead/report/what-men-think-of-besides-sex/20110304.htm

On a similar note comes the hit single "Barbara Streisand" by "Duck Sauce" I suggest you check out the lyrics below. Believe it or not its another hit!