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Life and Personal

Six Degrees of Separation of thought

Almost everyone has heard about the Small World Phenomenon. It was first introduced by philosopher Stanley Milgram, who exhibited that everyone in this world is networked with each other using a chain of acquaintances not more than 6 degrees long. Since then, a lot of experiments, both online and offline, have been performed by various researchers to basically prove the hypothesis. It is infact pretty amazing to realize that I am just about 6 degrees away from knowing Bill Gates or even the Pope!

The emergence of the Internet has helped us form boundary-less social networks. It is now easy to communicate and share with people irespective of where they are physically located. These online social networking websites are a very good place to see the small world effect in real time. As you must have noticed, I talk about the Internet a lot in my posts. I think the Internet could very well be the most important invention in the lifetime of the entire mankind.

Some movies have also drawn themes from the small world effect. The latest that I watched was “My Date with Drew” in which this young aspiring film-maker ventures out to use his “small world network” in order to get a date with Drew Barrymore. He was ultimately successful, although I wouldn’t exactly credit the small word phenomenon for his success.

One very simple question comes to mind. Why six degrees of separation? Why isn’t it 5 or 10? Well, 5 is too small, and 10 is too big. What I mean is that the theory merely states that we are connected to everyone else in this world by at most a 6 long chain. It could be shorter. But, no longer than 6. I think the magic number 6 also has to do with the fact that the human brain is typically not good at remembering anything bigger than 7 long. For example, there are 7 days in the week, 7 digits in a telephone number, 7 stages of progressive development of the disembodied soul according to Indian beliefs, the 7 seas, etc. In fact, the number 7 holds a high degree of prominence in the Hindu religion. A much more scientific synopsis of the importance of “7” can be read here.

All this makes me wonder; Are our thoughts separated to others’ in much the same way? Is it possible to propagate our vision and ideas throughout the world using the small world phenomenon as a reliable base? I personally think that the answer to all these questions is a resounding “YES”. I was watching this movie called Waking Life the other day and there was a scene where this couple (from the movie Before Sunrise, btw) were talking about dreams and reality. They mentioned something very interesting. In a scientific experiment, a group of people were given crosswords puzzles to which the solutions were already printed a day earlier, but unbeckonst to them. Surprisingly, their performance was stellar. It appears that there is some way by which thoughts and ideas get communicated subliminally.

Can this explain why some innovations happen at the same time but at separate places? I think this has broad implications. We are theoretically at the same level of intelligence and/or awareness as others, although a little bit late. So what’s the role of education? Maybe the purpose of education is to enable us to be thought leaders. After that it’s the small “mindscape” phenomenon at work! How many CEOs of tech companies are actually techies? Very few. They lead with their thoughts, their ideas, and their vision. Just because they are onto the next wave of ideas even before the employees assimilate the first wave makes them leaders.

Can we predict the future using this? Of course! If we can program our brain with expected outcomes to actions and then propagate ideas successfully, we can in fact be the cause of major changes in the world! We are an exceedingly networked society right now. If the mind networking theory holds truth, we should all look forward to a more balanced, and happier earth. An Earth that has been shaped by the collective thoughts of billions of people from all over the planet. It is a small world after all!

Categories
Tech and Culture

Video resumes to better market yourself

A lot can be said about someone from the way they talk, express their opinions, and describe themselves. The Internet has evolved. We now have speeds that enable videoconferencing. Most of the voice communications is handled through VoIP streams these days. It makes perfect sense to use these interactive technologies in looking for a job.

A resume is the basic form of applying for a job. You market your core skills, brag about your interpersonal skills, and write about your achievements. Most companies now get more resumes by email than any other medium like fax or snail mail. A lot of hiring managers/recruiters at large corporations are also facing challenges in keeping up with the influx of resumes, and research has shown that most resumes do a very poor job at protraying the real candidate.

Imagine a scenario where your electronic job application is a software executable with a small video window and interactive text. You can actually make a better impression by recording a customized video and then highlighting it with scrolling text. Something like a powerpoint presentation. It would help recruiters in avoiding all that mess of garbled words that they so lovingly often ignore depending on the time of the day and their current mood. JobsBlog had an example a few days ago where someone got a job at Microsoft just by making a very powerful Powerpoint presentation instead of sending in a resume.

Truly, this needs to be made easy for all the non-techies out there to really be pushed into mainstream job search techniques. A standard is needed, and thus a feature-full software suite. Any venture capital people out there want to give me finance? Email me for a proposal!

Categories
Economy India

Economic Cost of Indian democracy – 1% economic growth

Democracy in India reduces its overall rate of economic growth by about 1%. Startling as it might sound, it is a good price to pay. International investors as well as companies love to put their money in a non-authoritative regime. This is evident by the fact that although everyone has money in China, they have faith in India. Can we overtake China? Definitely. Is it a distant dream? Not at all. We’re only like 15 years behind China when it comes to the pace of economic reforms. The primary difference is that while China’s reforms are investment centric, India’s reforms are people centric. This is where we pay the price for democracy. Not to mention that China’s workforce is going to reduce by about 50% in the next 30 years, whereas ours will effectively double in the same time period.

India is a land of beliefs, languages, colors, and their associated idiosyncrasies. On one hand we have the pro-divestment, pro-globalization Government in power, while on the other hand we have the left. The Left has its own concerns; concerns which bear their own merit. It is hard to please everyone in a democracy. Indian democracy is corrupt, filthy, inefficient, lethargic, and polluted. But, things still get done. We are still the world’s second fastest growing economy, and at conservative counts, are growing at the rate of about 8% per annum.

I have made a brief, albeit slightly educated post on India’s economic growth before. Experts believe that a democracy can never achieve more than a 9-10% economic growth rate at all. I would like to study this verdict in detail, and would certainly talk about it when I do. A very good quote by Gurcharan Das, a prolific writer – “In the case of China, you have a government which is inducing this miracle, in India it is despite the government”. He goes on to say that the Indian economy grows at night, when the Government is asleep.

Why then, does India’s finance minister Dr. Chidambram believe that we don’t pay a price for democracy, rather the lack of it? Of course, he has a very rational view on the whole thing from the perspective of a democracy in India that is actually authoritative at certain granularities; a democracy where some people are still afraid of exercising their fundamental rights. Is it true that a democracy can exist without any ills of its own? Is it possible to be truly democratic? Is it possible to have a democracy where everyone is happy?

What changes the equation when we consider the economic synergies created between India and the developed, industrialized west? Why does the newly awake America love India so much? It is a fact that Indians rank second in their liking for America after Americans! Whereas 83% of Americans like America’s ways, about 71% Indians endorse it, according to an article in the latest Newsweek. Who wouldn’t want to do business with a country that likes their way of doing business?

Things are changing, and I am happy that we paid, and continue to keep paying the price for maintaining the world’s largest democracy. Post-colonial India has evolved. We have changed, and have even been through an authoritative regime, only to see our growth rate slow down further. The world loves us, and we are taking over the world by exporting intelligence and our way of (overcoming obstacles in) life.

In the words of Gurcharan Das – For 3,000 years, we have been working with knowledge that’s basically invisible, so it might just be that our core competence is invisible.

Categories
Life and Personal

This is what my room looks like

My room

Pretty messy, eh!

Categories
Economy Life and Personal

My Great Clips experience

Hair Care is a $55 billion+ industry in the US. It is also akin to the restaurant business in that it is highly recession resistant, and is almost always a guaranteed source of revenue if it reaches out to a good demographic.

I have a strange aversion to female hair dressers/stylists because of one bad experience. Nevertheless, I decided to give the new neighborhood Great Clips a shot because they were offering a haircut for $7. Now, each Great Clips franchise is independently run and offers the same kind of ambience. Every store maintains a list of names and addresses of their customers. This is not shared among the different locations, and I am guessing serves to maintain the spending/services received profile of every customer at a location.

In addition to regular hair care services, the company has also forged “strategic” alliances with product companies that market different hair care products for both men and women. And, what better way to reach out to potenial customers than to offer them a free trial of a shampoo or hair thickening lotion! I was offered a free shampoo as soon as I sat in one of the chairs.

Another thing I noticed was that my stylist was actually certified by Great Clips as a qualified hair stylist. This is something I have never seen before, at least at any run of the mill cheap salon. I was fairly impressed, and discussed hair care with her. She recommended me a particular shampoo and hair lotion, and even offered to give me a free trial of the lotion.

In the end, I walked out of the salon spending more than what I expected to, and wondering about how, for the first time, I actually enjoyed being a customer at a chain than an independent establishment. I am pretty impressed with the way American chains work. They are able to capitalize on a brand name with so much efficiency. This also made me wonder if there was anything similar back home in India. All I could come across in my search was a fairly new company called Brushman (India) Limited. I am not sure about the size of the hair care industry in India, but with such a large population, I am guessing it is pretty big. Now, it’s another thing that the biggest chunk of that industry rests with small little roadside barbershops offering hair cuts for a dollar.

Categories
Life and Personal

Meaning of life

I am deeply interested in philosophy pertaining to the way of life, along with theology and theomorphisms. Being an engineer with a good amount of exposure to biology, I now tend to think of life with a greater metaphysical twist in reasoning. A lot of my friends don’t agree with the crudeness with which I describe life as primarily being a set of complex chemical reactions; all gone haywire. I respect life, and my scientific, causality based, and somewhat rational approach to finding the answers to questions about life have really helped me, or at least that is what I want to believe.

A lot of philosophers have spent a lot of time trying to find out the meaning of life. Why are we alive? Why do we die? Is death inevitable (although a very recent research has isolated a gene that inhibits programmed cell death!) ? Questions of this sort have always haunted each one of us at one or the other stage of life. There is no concrete answer simply because we do not understand the mechanism of life. We can only restrict ourself to our existential state of reference and try to formulate theories. Life could very well be an accident.

What makes us believe that we are alive? Is it because we move? Is it because we die? Would it be right to say that it is death that defines life? Maybe our life on earth is the spiritual precursor to a real life somewhere else. Maybe life on earth is a way to separate or maybe conjoin soul with mind in the grand scheme. I would love to get answers to some of these doubts and questions.

Now, I talk about life a lot when I am with friends, and tonight was no different. It started with one of my friends making a comment that he just cannot understand females. I have to admit; I have no problems understanding people. I believe that we are all minions working tirelessly to reap the most benefits out of this supposedly limited life we have been “gifted” with. Now, all you have to do to understand people is to put yourself in their shoes. Easier said than done, this is a sure-shot way to understand anyone’s behavior. I don’t think anyone is born evil. In fact, I can argue with anyone about the definition of evil. Saying that something is evil or a sin is like calling someone ugly. No matter how ugly someone appears to you, there’ll always be a large number of other people who find beauty in that someone. Who are we to judge someone or something?

Sure, the humans in power, either politically, monetarily, spiritually, or professionally would love you to believe that you have a deficiency. This is how they are able to force their ideas and “threat” down to the others. Humans, by design, love to follow orders. We yearn for spirituality. We crave to be controlled. We seek order; order through external authority. Some people are beyond that and they are the ones who use their persuasive powers to counter equality. What makes something ethical and/or right? Again, what’s ethical for me could be a sin to you.

My take tonight on the whole meaning of life issue wasn’t any different from one I realized later on after I searched the Internet for “meaning of life”. I believe that we are on earth to find out the answers to questions regarding life. We have achieved our goal from life when we run out of questions to seek answers to. At that point, it is time to die. We have completed our objective. Different people have different ways of finding answers to their questions. Some believe in leadership, some in following orders, some in doing what they deem as good to others. In the end, we do not deserve to breathe any longer if we run out of questions.

Sometimes I feel that I don’t have any more questions about life …

Categories
Life and Personal

Away from the Sun…

It’s down to this
I’ve got to make this life make sense
Can anyone tell what I’ve done
I miss the life
I miss the colors of the world
Can anyone tell where I am

‘Cause now again I’ve found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I’m so far down, away from the sun again
Away from the sun again

I’m over this
I’m tired of living in the dark
Can anyone see me down here
The feeling’s gone. There’s nothing left to lift me up
Back into the world I’ve known

‘Cause now again I’ve found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I’m so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I’m so far down, away from the sun again

Oh no,
Yeah,
Oh no…

It’s down to this
I’ve got to make this life make sense
And now I can’t tell what I’ve done

And now again I’ve found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me

‘Cause now again I’ve found myself
So far down, away from the sun
That shines into the darkest place
I’m so far down, away from the sun
That shines to light the way for me
To find my way back into the arms
That care about the ones like me
I’m so far down, away from the sun again

Oh no,
Yeah,
I’m gone

– 3 Doors Down

Categories
Life and Personal

What I desire from life

The world is a cruel place. We are consistently trying to compete with the same people we love and care for, and do so in the hopes of creating a better future. Something seems wrong. We have re-aligned our notion of being content and happy in order to accomodate materialistic and “venomous” gains that are more often than not actually against the premise we started out with. We end up hurting others and ourselves.

Sometimes I wonder if there’s something I could do to make everyone around me happier. It feels so great to be able to bring a smile to some person’s face. Is it possible to separate materialistic ambitions from neutral “pleasing” aspirations? I wish we celebrated atleast one day every week where we would make someone’s day a happier day. From now on, it is my goal to brighten at least one person’s day everyday.

Life is short.

Categories
Life and Personal Tech and Culture

This is where Google Adsense goes wrong

I use XM Satellite Radio, but the ads on the right do a good job at luring my readers to Sirius’ service. I’d just like to say that I prefer XM over Sirius after considering all things. XM needs to buy some Adword space.

😛

Categories
Tech and Culture

Is satellite radio really the ultimate in radio broadcasting?

I have been using XM Satellite Radio for about the last month or so. I have to say that it is actually a giant leap forward in radio programming, and I am addicted to its programming. The fact that I can easily tune into any kind of music or talk radio programming is very enticing. Not to mention the commercial free music. The hardware is also revolutionary, and I use a receiver that works in my car, home, as well as in my pocket. Satellite radio is here to stay. Bye bye regular FM.

Or not?

Is satellite broadcasting the ultimate in “national area” digital transmission? I can count some things that satellite radio lacks at present:

1. There is no way to send user statistics back to XM Radio to help them calculate demand for a particular genre.
2. It is non-interactive.
3. I still cannot listen to anything on demand.
4. The number of channels is strictly limited in proportion with the broadcast quality. There is little room for expansion unless a new codec comes out.
5. Any technological changes/innovation would result in making the current breed of receivers obsolete (read inability to update firmware).
6. It is still not global, and is fairly expensive to deploy, although the costs diminish once the systems are in place.
7. Satellite transmission is not enough. There are terrestrial repeaters throughout the nation that broadcast the digital channels to crowded urban areas, i.e., a generous land based infrastructure is still required to provide coverage.

There are many more drawbacks of this technology. In a way, satellite radio companies (2 at this time – XM and Sirius) have deployed a terrestrial network not unlike a mobile communications company. This is because each of these repeaters has only a limited range and uses a freuquency not very far away from those used for cellular communications.

Now, when we talk about anything digital, the first thing that comes to the mind is the Internet. It is the world’s biggest digital network that reaches almost every point on Earth. I, for one, believe that the Internet is the best content delivery mechanism for anything digital.

Could Internet radio ever take over satellite radio? I believe the answer is yes. The Internet is duplex, and has the potential to provide many more services than just radio, for example. The way I look at it, Satellite radio is just a transitionary phase from FM to nearly pervasive digital radio based on the Internet. Already, there are companies with plans to blanket the nation with high speed wireless networks that connect to the Internet. All that is needed is a “peaceful” way to establish internetwork traffic and tariffs.

From a content provider’s view, I could focus solely on content rather than the underlying infrastructure if I use the Internet as a delivery vehicle. This also opens up the business so that there are more competitors, and better choice for the consumer. In fact, Internet radio obliterates almost every drawback I enumerated earlier. But, I believe it is still quite far away, and until then I am going to enjoy my XM Satellite Radio!