Categories
Economy Life and Personal

Greed

We’re all greedy. The difference lies in the degree, motivation, and area of our greed. Some people are greedy for success; some people are greedy for fame; some people are greedy for recognition; some people are greedy about money. There are a lot more things that make people greedy.

Nevertheless, I have found one common thread behind all sorts of greed. And, that is impatience. It is what makes us miserable in our own eyes, and in the eyes of everyone else who isn’t on the same level as us. Imagine this – you’re greedy for fame, and you try your best (including using unethical means) to collect all the fame you can get. In your eyes, you’re well justified, because, after all, you’re working hard for it. But, get this, if only you were patient and continued doing the right thing, you’d have gained fame nonetheless! It could have just been longer to achieve. Greed makes us lose sight of where we actually stand, and therefore makes us vulnerable.

Another example is money. One scenario is my parents giving me money for something. I could be greedy (not always bad) and impatient (always bad), and use various means like tantrums or arguments to get it, or I could do what I am doing, justify it, and get a lot more money from them than originally desired. Of course, I am now too grown up to be greedy about money with my family, or even friends, but the example holds true. In my experience, greed coupled with impatience only make us achieve less, albeit very quickly. We are delighted to get something so soon, but it actually reduces our gains compared to having waited a little longer.

I started thinking about this as I was imagining typical management follies committed by greedy managers. It all made sense.

Click here for a very nice description of the “personality dragons”.

I end this post with this very good dialog that takes place in a 2003 episode of South Park:

Randy: There’s more to life than profits
Indian Chief: Really, Like what?
Randy: You know, like slurpies and stuff.

It is upto you to interpret “slurpies and stuff”!

Categories
Economy India Life and Personal Tech and Culture

Definition of an Entrepreneur

Spotted on slashdot, the definition of an Entrepreneur:

Entreprenuer, n.: A high-rolling risk taker who would rather be a spectacular failure than a dismal success.

Categories
Economy India Tech and Culture

12 startups to launch now

Business 2.0 magazine has an article on the 12 best startup ideas for the present times. The ones I really like/find interesting are:

The first  idea is pretty interesting seeing the global demand for combustible energy resources. Also, Argentina serves as a central location for distribution to all the energy dependant economies.

The second idea is controversial in my opinion. Sure, the growing economy, coupled with added disposable incomes has made the Indian youth yearn for more expensive tastes, I doubt there’s a very big market for imported wines. Indian culture is different from western culture in that sense, and no matter how much Indians try to mimic the West, there’ll always be subtle differences. Consumption of alcohol isn’t favorable culturally, biologically, and even environmentally!

Categories
Life and Personal

The source of all troubles

The above in Hindi basically means that the source of all sadness, enemosity, and worries is our inherent desire to revel in rights, while neglecting our duties all the time.

I find it so true.

Categories
Travel

My trip to Harmony, MN

I love driving, and living in North Carolina has made me appreciate nature more than/equally to high rise buildings in cities like Chicago. I am also getting used to driving without a GPS with help from AAA maps and their trip planner website.

So, yesterday I drove to a small town in south eastern Minnesota called Harmony, with my parents. On the agenda was a drive on the “Historic Bluff Country Scenic Byway“. The plan was to spend a couple hours at “Niagara Cave”, one of the best undergroud caves in the US. The cave has fossils as old as about 400 million years, and huge stalactite formations along its 60 meter depth. It is located about 5 miles from Harmony.

While at Harmony, we decided to take a 2 hour long Amish Country Tour. We hired an 83 year old (!) tour guide, and he sat in our car to expose us to the Amish way of life. Truly spectacular. We drove around Amish schools, houses, farms, bakeries, a cemetry, and even interacted with a few people. They are extremely traditional, and consider themselves German, and everyone else around them “English”. I learned a lot about them, and bought handmade soaps, candles, brownies, and decorative stuff. They live in harmony with their “Englishmen” peers, and it’s amazing how the latter would have electricity and cars at their place while the Amish household neither of those.

It was definitely one of the most memorable day-trips I have made in the US.

Categories
Economy India Life and Personal Politics Tech and Culture

Textbook prices

Everyone knows what I am going to talk about. Do we really need to spend hundreds of dollars on textbooks we’d really not use after the semester is done with? This isn’t just an American issue. Textbooks, even in India, are pretty expensive, especially at the higher education level.

Continue reading “Textbook prices”
Categories
Life and Personal Travel

Road “signs”

So, I was driving on MN-55 in my lovely car, with my parents with me, when this beat-up Toyota/Honda overtakes us, and the girl waves at me like she’s never gonna see an Indian guy again!

Now, this could mean 3 things:

  1. She was really proud of her beatup car overtaking my Mustang.
  2. She knew me.
  3. My car was blowing deadly black smoke.

Of course, number 2 is the first thing that comes in the mind, and your parents’ mind, but I doubt it. Number 3 is ruled out. My car is awesome!

Now, if only there was a way to reconnect!

Categories
Life and Personal

Really smart, or really cogitative…

Very often, I come across blogs of friends or acquantances with extremely lengthy and/or profound posts. These kind of blogs are generally pretty interesting for a number of reasons.

But first, broadly speaking, I have found blogs to be either one of the following types:

  1. Rehash of the hottest news with added commentary.
  2. Lengthy posts with lots of metaphors, literary gems, and historical research.
  3. Random short, sometimes long, ramblings (possibly like my blog).

Now, the thing I have observed with bloggers with profound posts is the fact that most of them are actually not as interesting or even intelligent as their posts want you to believe. Of course, there’s my personal bias here, but I have noticed that these people usually get very little done in real life due to their inherent proneness to spending more time thinking than doing something. Yet, they have extremely intelligent posts.

Sometimes I wonder if most of those bloggers should have been philosophers or writers instead of engineers. Maybe the Internet does afford us the luxury of creative enrichment in unprecedented ways, blogs being one of them.

PS: This was yet another rambling brought to you by the creator of this web-log.

Categories
Life and Personal Tech and Culture

Take the Pew/Internet Bloggers Survey

The folks at the Pew Internet & American Life Project have created an online survey for bloggers about their blogging habits. If you’re a blogger reading this post, I strongly urge you to participate in it. There are about a couple dozen questions, and it would take about 10 minutes of your time.

Some of the questions from the survey that I would like to see statistics for are:

  1. Do you make money from your blog?
  2. Do you research the facts before posting something?
  3. Do you blog specifically to educate others?
  4. Is your blog an exercise in literary skills?
  5. Do you use a different name/identity while blogging?

Link: http://www.pewinternet.org/

Categories
Tech and Culture

Developing games made easy !

I can’t believe I used to be one among the Microsoft-hating sheep sometime ago. Micro-soft has come a long long way since those days of noncompetitive practices. Windows has evolved into a secure and reliable operating system with a consistently improving user interface.

Continue reading “Developing games made easy !”