That Sinking Feeling

I can't taste the Pizza or the wine
Coz i Know you'll never be mine
Everyday, I sleep in shirt and jeans
Tossing and turning in fit full dreams

Only to wake up in a pool of sweat
If only I could think of something else
A mobile notification comes up
Aching heart jus won't give up
Did I think that being ignored was bad
Boy, the knockout punch wasn't so rad

The passion of a thousand stars in vain
Without a whisper to express my pain
Just cant imagine being Happy again

A breaking heart creates no sound
Barely Visible the world around
Numb, the mind plunges down
Suffocating emptiness envelopes around
No Melody can my ears hear
As my limbs refuse to bear

Questions reverberating in my head
All the stuff i shouldn't have said
I never told you what you meant
Wasted all the time that we spent

I can't imagine a life without
Love is all that life is all about
This feeling i will always cherish
Till struggle ceases and my bones perish

Love, Hardships, Mistrust and Heartbreak

In this decade twas year the fourth
The Ice broke that shook the North
By by by sweet lil nothings flew
And so it was that nothings grew

The perils of the mountains asunder
Spud that grew in the Rain and Thunder
It took the courage of the Fifth
For eyes to meet and the hearts be with

The year that was bliss
oblivious to the homes amiss
Not of the world is He
Who is with the souls that be

Oh how they dueled the nation
As one they had but one disaffection
The siblings were the first to give
As the folks learned to let live

While the date was in the Sixth
A chink in trust was born in the mirth
An intractable horse, it took a life of its own
For a stranger she lost what was once her own
He apprehended a love so one sided
The Quake which shook his mind

Forgotten lie the dreams of desires
A Plague which destroys empires
A house which was a home in the sixth
Now an empty tomb in the Seventh

Weak Channel Affect

First the Terminology

1) A Task: A task is a particular objective which needs to be completed by performing a predetermined set of milestones. E.g. To get a job is a task, to get married is a task, to buy an object is a task.

2) A Milestone: A Milestone is a smaller unit within a bigger task. E.g. to get a Job you can a) Make your resume, b) Search for openings, c) Apply to openings. d) Prepare for Interview e) Ace the interview. And So on...

3) Channel:- A Channel is a medium used to complete a task. E.g to get a Job monster.com could be a medium, to get married friends/family could be a medium.

I state the Weak Channel Affect as follows.

Among Multiple channels if a particular channel is weak for a particular Milestone within a task than it becomes even weaker for all subsequent dependent milestones within the same task.

E.g. If getting a job is a task, and the channel naukri.com is the weakest in terms of getting shortlists.

Than this same channel will also be weakest in terms of getting an interview call as a ratio to number of shortlists.

E.g. 2) If Marriage is a task and shaadi.com as a channel is the worst performing in terms of searching for a suitable match, than for every 100 searches through this channel fewer will reach the next milestone than any other channel.

The crux is that the channel becomes even weaker even of the denominator is maintained the same as for other channels. 

Mathematically i = 1..n are a set of milestones.

and C is the initial population through a channel

Ei(C) is the number of samples crossing Milestone i, then by definition the weakest channel is one for which 

E1(Weak Channel) is the least of E1(All possible C's)

Now the Weak Channel Affect states that even if we take the same number of people who have crossed the first milestone from C and any other channel. a fewer number of people will cross the next milestone from the weakest channel as compared to other channels.

Examples in Real Life.

1) For a weak set of students, if you somehow get them to pass Grade 1, more will fail Grade 2 compared to a set of strong students, even as a ratio of total students passing grade 1.

2) For a set of poor employees, if you somehow hire them, fewer people will get promoted as opposed to a stronger set of employees.

3) For a poor set of customers, If you somehow pull them to the store. Fewer people will make a purchase as compared to a stronger set even a proportion to number of people entering the store.

....

Conclusions

A poor channel will always remain poor and can not be compensated for by increasing the throughput and hence it always makes sense to focus upon stronger channels even is this means a smaller overall throughput.

My 2cents on Social Networks

Social Networks need to add a dimension of subject area to the Social Graph. What i mean is that just because I am friends with my accountant i should not be forced to see all his pictures and commentary on religious sentiments right on top of my news feed. However i would love to check out all his posts related to personal finance and investments. Quora addresses this very issue with the Subject Bio tag and following a topic or question in addition to following people.
Quora will carve out a special Niche for itself in knowledge management, would love to see features like question search based on tags and relevance to friends in a certain area.
There is so much noise on twitter that unless a mechanism to sort tweets based on subject area is soon developed i don't see how it would remain useful

Ironically, the increasing number of hours spent on ‘social’ networking sites is making a student more ‘unsocial'

Social Interactions can be viewed as being:-
a) Casual or
b) Personal and intimate.
The Online channel works very well for the former, whereas face to face or telephonic channels work best for the latter.
Facebook offers a convenient medium to interact with tons of like minded casual friends. This makes it an easy information gathering and convenient socializing channel. Similarly LinkedIn, twitter and Blogs and communities can be used to expand ones social circle.
However, not so for the chosen few cherished friends and family. Face to face interactions are necessary to sustain the bond and identify emotionally with our closest links.
In Summary use Social networks for quantity, other channels for quality.
It is often the student reversing this combination who ends up being ‘Unsocial’. E.g. Relying solely on the online channel erodes personal bonds. These ties are necessary to sustain social behavior. Vice versa by ignoring the online channel students can lose out on a wealth of information and quantity of friends.
I read this article recently. Social networking causing depression? (http://educationtimes.com/educationTimes/CMSD/Your-Health/34/2010061120100610172118308670e216f/Socialnetworkingcausingdepression.html)
DEPRESSION: This article talks about ‘depression owing to irresponsible and rude comments made by friends.’ WOULD a similar offline act would not cause much worse despair. If YES, why blame the online channel. In fact tracking the trail of evidence is much easier online than offline. Hence, if anything Online media provides for an easier redress mechanism.
PRIVACY: The article also claims that students are unaware of the public nature of this media. This is definitely a problem, and needs to be fixed. When existing media channels were born it took time to fully understand the privacy implications. The social network greatly enhanced the power to express. However, today we yield this power like a kid plays with a toy. We do not fully recognize the advertising implications of doing so in public. E.g. girls posting sexually suggestive pictures and titillating details to establish their status as “hot”.
This power needs to be fully understood and used with great responsibility.
With great power comes great responsibility.
If you look at broad Internet usage trends, porn represents a substantial online interest. But, this does not mean that the online medium itself has failed. Powerful Search Engines, free expert guidance, health and educational websites, online e-commerce etc... are available for those who care to use them.
Similarly, Social media can be the most powerful learning tool after search engines. E.g. by subscribing to expert feeds and tweets can be a powerful educational platform. On the other hand using tweets, Facebook updates and blogs to stalk someone is also possible. It is the latter behavioral pattern which is a waste of the power of this media! Hence, used properly Social media represents a disruptive change in our educational and social lives.
Another misguided study is published here, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Facebook-affects-students-grades/articleshow/6512366.cms
The primary conclusion of this Article is that Facebook impacts Grades. However, grades are not everything. Social media enhances street smartness and communication skills. Students are increasingly cooped up indoors by overzealous parents during exam times. Such students find Facebook a pleasant release of creativity and peer interaction. By keeping tabs on Facebook students can improve their general knowledge and unite for social causes. The recent use of twitter in Iran demonstrates the ability of the medium in fighting social injustice.
In conclusion like other media’s Social comes with a bag of pros and cons. Education students on the privacy and educational potential of Social media is essential. Similarly mixing online social networks with offline events and networks makes for Social Success.

References

Google








Synopsys

Power and Forgiveness

http://www.geeta-kavita.com/hindi_sahitya.asp?id=154

Here is a great lesson in diplomacy and human relations from Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. Forgiveness of a weakling does not count. First have the power and capability to defeat the enemy, then only your offer of peace would carry weight. Virtues of forgiveness, kindness and tolerance are appreciated in society only if you first have the capacity to crush. Illustration by Garima Saxena – Rajiv Krishna Saxena
Keywords: strength and forgiveness, strong, power, mahabharat, ram, sea, varun, Duryodhan, poison, snake, docile

Cat o 9 tales.

Other than that i have had a few profound realizations in the last year or so which i would like to share with you

1) The importance of cash, yes job satisfaction is very important, but while collecting funds for my MBA fee i realised just how important cash is too. Like the college analogy by the time we trully realise the importance of wealth it is too late to get any.

2) Importance of health, health is something we allways like to think of something whose importance we know, but rarley act. So ACT now before its too late.

3) The importance of hard work.

4) The importance of self confidence.

5) ALWAYS be well dressed and clean shaven. When you look good you feel confident.

6) NETWORK, you never know whose help you may need when. Interact with successful people, it rubs off. Relationships take a while to build, so again the sooner you start the bigger network you have. NEVER make an enemy, its better not to know someone than to know someone who forms a negative opinion of you.

7) Communicate, even if you have no concrete results for a week, send out a mail to the team saying what you did. This fosters confidence at the same time someone else's expertise may help you out. Always respond to team emails with whatever insights you may have, which brings us to ..

8) Show Initiative, whenever you are reading up a paper or research work or have a new idea communicate this to the rest of the team, people will then remember you as an energetic enthusiastic individual and associate a lot of potential with you.

9) READ READ READ, always be up to date in what's going on in your industry and new ways of thinking.

Man or God

Are experts born or are they created? (As this blog would lead you to believe http://blog.sreeram.org/2008/01/expertise-and-effort.html)

How can this guys fingers so flawlessly without faltering once, is he some new species, (a homo sapiens v2.0) ?

All that Glitters is NOT Spam.

We live in an age of style.
Glossy, lustrous and slick magazines, newspapers, and Pamphlets,
Sweet innocent voices selling everything from ring tones to Washing Machines.
Naive kids vying for our attention in the form of ads.



We also live through a plethora of spam, from unsolicited sms's to shining emails. From slick pamphlets to unsolicited calls.

Due to easier and cheaper communication channels today the amount of spam has increased much more than the real content. Hence, at no point in history has the ability to separate the grain from the chaff been more important or more difficult.

I see people rejecting pamphlets or emails without a first glance simply because of their high style quotient. This often deprives them of good deals and offers.

If one directly dives into the content, its easy to separate the content from the medium. Thus do not reject anything outright, give every email/sms/pamphlet atleast 30 seconds. You will be surprised that's just how long it takes to separate important communication from the spam.

If you are wondering as to why The calling cards are spam and the laptop deal is not, you have grasped the logic behind the post. I.e what is spam to you could be useful for me, and vice-versa.

So go ahead and avoid those glittery mails at your own peril..

Was Newton actively researching Gravity when the apple fell or was Columbus looking for a new continent when he found the Americas ?

A tale of Two India's

The recent surf excel Mitha pani advertisement and people describing the kid in it as cute remind me of a similar although much more real scene from Swadesh.

The kid is bringing water in both scenes but can you spot the real India ?