Had gone to hawaii last month. One of the most beautiful places I have ever seen!
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
emails and Letters
Had heard this nice speech way back, from Srimathy at the toastmaster's.
Here's the gist, its a good read.
Dec 2007, the week before Christmas, I decided to send a gift to a family friend. I was trying to make a point, that I did not care for expensive gifts and what really mattered was the thought. I chose a book, “Life’s little instruction book.”, cost about 7.00$. I wanted to tell them that it was a fun book to read with someone you cared about. I was also wishing them a life full of happiness and joy. Keep all this in mind as you listen to my story. I went online to Barnes& Noble.com.
I ordered the book, selected Gift wrap and spend a lot of time compressing all this into 250 characters. I clicked the confirm button and soon I got an email confirming my order. There was no gift wrap and there was no personal message. I panicked. I called customer service and after a long wait I spoke to a real human voice on the other end. I was told that the gift wrap could not be fixed but a personal message was easy to add.
I spent the next fifteen minutes spelling out an Indian name, and with all the tension tried to recreate the message in 250 characters. I was not completely happy with how it turned out but I let it go. Finally the book arrived in few days. No gift wrap, no message and surprisingly, the from address was theirs too. So they were left wondering when they ordered a silly book. They were polite to me but the meaning of the whole act was totally lost. Far from how I had imagined it.
I would like to talk today about the charm of hand written notes and letters.Communication modes have changed a lot over the years.Especially now that postcards have been replaced by status updates in facebook and twitter.The new culture is one of speed and hurry. Everything is shortened and we sometimes do not even write complete sentences. I know a friend who signs off as R. In the midst of all this, why is it more charming to receive or send handwritten notes or letters?
There is a charm to choosing fine stationary and writing with a fountain pen. People sat down just to write a letter. We did not communicate in short sentences so often and so there was more to communicate in the written form. More of it was also retained by the recipients. There is something about letter writing that lets your thoughts flow. If you are in the right frame of find, it is almost unstoppable once you begin. You make a special connection with the person to whom you are writing. History has many a record of collections of love letters, educational letters and travelogues.
There is a fine collection of letters that Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi when he was in prison.
Those of us who are from the age of letter writing have our own treasures. The last time I went to India, I brought back a large bagful of old letters. I still enjoy holding the piece of paper in my hand, feeling it, and cherishing the old times… Strangely I don’t have any letters from the last five or six years. The internet age has taken over and I really dont read even a week old email
You may notice that of late even Christmas and New Year wishes are not addressed to individuals, but to groups. Mass distribution lists are good for work related communication. But when you received a ‘happy new year’ note along with 50 others copied on it, it seems very impersonal. Probably its fitting with the times of hurry and speed.
In the evening when you pick up mail, it would be nice to receive a letter for a change instead of bills and catalogues. If you enjoy that, take the time to write to someone and you will be surprised at how much joy there is to writing.
Here's the gist, its a good read.
Dec 2007, the week before Christmas, I decided to send a gift to a family friend. I was trying to make a point, that I did not care for expensive gifts and what really mattered was the thought. I chose a book, “Life’s little instruction book.”, cost about 7.00$. I wanted to tell them that it was a fun book to read with someone you cared about. I was also wishing them a life full of happiness and joy. Keep all this in mind as you listen to my story. I went online to Barnes& Noble.com.
I ordered the book, selected Gift wrap and spend a lot of time compressing all this into 250 characters. I clicked the confirm button and soon I got an email confirming my order. There was no gift wrap and there was no personal message. I panicked. I called customer service and after a long wait I spoke to a real human voice on the other end. I was told that the gift wrap could not be fixed but a personal message was easy to add.
I spent the next fifteen minutes spelling out an Indian name, and with all the tension tried to recreate the message in 250 characters. I was not completely happy with how it turned out but I let it go. Finally the book arrived in few days. No gift wrap, no message and surprisingly, the from address was theirs too. So they were left wondering when they ordered a silly book. They were polite to me but the meaning of the whole act was totally lost. Far from how I had imagined it.
I would like to talk today about the charm of hand written notes and letters.Communication modes have changed a lot over the years.Especially now that postcards have been replaced by status updates in facebook and twitter.The new culture is one of speed and hurry. Everything is shortened and we sometimes do not even write complete sentences. I know a friend who signs off as R. In the midst of all this, why is it more charming to receive or send handwritten notes or letters?
There is a charm to choosing fine stationary and writing with a fountain pen. People sat down just to write a letter. We did not communicate in short sentences so often and so there was more to communicate in the written form. More of it was also retained by the recipients. There is something about letter writing that lets your thoughts flow. If you are in the right frame of find, it is almost unstoppable once you begin. You make a special connection with the person to whom you are writing. History has many a record of collections of love letters, educational letters and travelogues.
There is a fine collection of letters that Nehru wrote to his daughter Indira Gandhi when he was in prison.
Those of us who are from the age of letter writing have our own treasures. The last time I went to India, I brought back a large bagful of old letters. I still enjoy holding the piece of paper in my hand, feeling it, and cherishing the old times… Strangely I don’t have any letters from the last five or six years. The internet age has taken over and I really dont read even a week old email
You may notice that of late even Christmas and New Year wishes are not addressed to individuals, but to groups. Mass distribution lists are good for work related communication. But when you received a ‘happy new year’ note along with 50 others copied on it, it seems very impersonal. Probably its fitting with the times of hurry and speed.
In the evening when you pick up mail, it would be nice to receive a letter for a change instead of bills and catalogues. If you enjoy that, take the time to write to someone and you will be surprised at how much joy there is to writing.
Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Preacher Hijacks Plane!
This news is really funny.
A preacher who is a junkie hijacks the whole plane on the basis of a fake bomb. And we think airport security has been made tougher. Probably he didn't bring his fake bomb inside a shoe or as a liquid, else he would have been definitely caught.
A preacher who is a junkie hijacks the whole plane on the basis of a fake bomb. And we think airport security has been made tougher. Probably he didn't bring his fake bomb inside a shoe or as a liquid, else he would have been definitely caught.
Monday, September 07, 2009
Tickets in black!
Had a pretty fun filled weekend. me, missus and couple of friends drove down to New york just like that. We thought as we are getting bored on a long weekend, why not go and watch U.S Open!Crazy decision at the eleventh hour, but it was worth it.
we drove (actually one of our friends did the majority of driving for 12 hrs) 18 hrs in 2 days to and fro and watched the matches on Saturday for 8-9 hrs. What was bizarre about the whole trip was that we paid 240 bucks for a single $62 ticket. The ticketing company even provided us the shuttle to the stadium.
I thought selling tickets for more value at the eleventh hour was illegal, and that this used to happen only in India (before the multiplexes took over the business from single theatres). But I guess this business is pretty alive and thriving and very much legal here! and we curse our Indian system for corruption and black marketing.
The only difference is that I guess, those black ticket selling kids/men in India lack the sophistication and internet marketing techniques, else you would be buying your next khan movie or T20 tickets in the net!
probably the day is not too far, you never know.
cheers
we drove (actually one of our friends did the majority of driving for 12 hrs) 18 hrs in 2 days to and fro and watched the matches on Saturday for 8-9 hrs. What was bizarre about the whole trip was that we paid 240 bucks for a single $62 ticket. The ticketing company even provided us the shuttle to the stadium.
I thought selling tickets for more value at the eleventh hour was illegal, and that this used to happen only in India (before the multiplexes took over the business from single theatres). But I guess this business is pretty alive and thriving and very much legal here! and we curse our Indian system for corruption and black marketing.
The only difference is that I guess, those black ticket selling kids/men in India lack the sophistication and internet marketing techniques, else you would be buying your next khan movie or T20 tickets in the net!
probably the day is not too far, you never know.
cheers
Saturday, August 29, 2009
The Black Swan.
I am not blogging at all, though I keep on promising myself everyday that tomorrow would be day when I would become prolific! So I thought, I will just pen down my Toastmaster speeches. Here's the toastmaster speech which I gave this week.
Today I am going to talk about something, which is hard to predict, very rare, a game changing event and which would have huge impact in your life. No, I am not going to talk about your wife's/girlfriend's moodyness (I dont think thats even a word) or your bonus , but instead I am going to talk about 'Black Swan theory'.
Before I explain what the theory is, let me just take a step back and retrace the orgin of this word.Till couple of hundred years back swans were always considered symbol of purity (white). Most of the literature would compare swans with purity and sacredness. And then they discovered Black swan swimming around in Australia. Thats how this theory gets its name, although this is not a game changing event or a huge impact event.
This theory been made famous by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan. It refers to rare event, which are game changers and impossible to predict. Some of them are : Invention of a wheel,world war I, Iphone, www, 9/11, Asian tsunami etc.
As I said earlier , these events are impossible to predict and be prepared for. They can be good ones or pretty bad ones which can bring us to our knees. What I am going to talk about today is how can we either use these event to our advantage or atleast limit our losses. I am going to give a gist ( my opinion) from this book (lessons learnt) on how to cope with these kind of events. Given the time constraints I am going to limit myself to three lessons.
1. Beware of the black swan
What this necessarily means that be up on your feet , always! Dont rest on your laurels. A good example of this case is : MOTOROLA .
A few years back, Motorola had this huge hit in MOTORAZR . But while competitors were investing heavily in smartphones and iphones , motorola was busy releasing the pink version.
Now if you take a look at the current top five best selling phones in the world, motorola is nowhere in the horizon. Complacency made them ignore the black swan
2.Beware of the unknown unknowns
What we dont know is always more important than what we actually know. Ignorance acknowledgement might not be such a bad thing after all. Rather than being cocksure of uncertain things which would anyways land us in soup , we can be ignorant and be aware of it.
A good example of this is : The year 2007 and 2008.
If you would have switch on T.V. or picked up a paper couple of years ago, all the experts were talking about how the economy is booming and oil is going to hit $250 a barrel. And then Subprime crisis hit them, of which nobody had any idea whatsoever. Oil dropped to $ 40 a barrel and the so called experts started speaking of impending doom. And the regular folks simply lost half of their 401k's.
3. Beware of the news
Too much news can be toxic. Take any kind news for example. we hear a news today and we build our own assumptions around it. We hear some more news tomorrow, rather than taking the new news at its face value, we selectively chose to select section of news to support our assumptions. we should always take the "NEWS" with a pinch of salt, Whatever showed in T.V. or internet might not always be correct or true.
As told in the book, "we are ignorant and would continue to be so". Though we cannot predict any black swan event, what we can do is be prepared for it. That itself puts us ahead of the "sure thing" confident guys , who are just one step away from disaster. This might help us in cutting down our losses during the black swan event , or as in the case of iphones ( 18 yr olds making millions through iphone apps) even profit from it.
Cheers.
Sources : wikipedia, Motley Fool
Today I am going to talk about something, which is hard to predict, very rare, a game changing event and which would have huge impact in your life. No, I am not going to talk about your wife's/girlfriend's moodyness (I dont think thats even a word) or your bonus , but instead I am going to talk about 'Black Swan theory'.
Before I explain what the theory is, let me just take a step back and retrace the orgin of this word.Till couple of hundred years back swans were always considered symbol of purity (white). Most of the literature would compare swans with purity and sacredness. And then they discovered Black swan swimming around in Australia. Thats how this theory gets its name, although this is not a game changing event or a huge impact event.
This theory been made famous by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan. It refers to rare event, which are game changers and impossible to predict. Some of them are : Invention of a wheel,world war I, Iphone, www, 9/11, Asian tsunami etc.
As I said earlier , these events are impossible to predict and be prepared for. They can be good ones or pretty bad ones which can bring us to our knees. What I am going to talk about today is how can we either use these event to our advantage or atleast limit our losses. I am going to give a gist ( my opinion) from this book (lessons learnt) on how to cope with these kind of events. Given the time constraints I am going to limit myself to three lessons.
1. Beware of the black swan
What this necessarily means that be up on your feet , always! Dont rest on your laurels. A good example of this case is : MOTOROLA .
A few years back, Motorola had this huge hit in MOTORAZR . But while competitors were investing heavily in smartphones and iphones , motorola was busy releasing the pink version.
Now if you take a look at the current top five best selling phones in the world, motorola is nowhere in the horizon. Complacency made them ignore the black swan
2.Beware of the unknown unknowns
What we dont know is always more important than what we actually know. Ignorance acknowledgement might not be such a bad thing after all. Rather than being cocksure of uncertain things which would anyways land us in soup , we can be ignorant and be aware of it.
A good example of this is : The year 2007 and 2008.
If you would have switch on T.V. or picked up a paper couple of years ago, all the experts were talking about how the economy is booming and oil is going to hit $250 a barrel. And then Subprime crisis hit them, of which nobody had any idea whatsoever. Oil dropped to $ 40 a barrel and the so called experts started speaking of impending doom. And the regular folks simply lost half of their 401k's.
3. Beware of the news
Too much news can be toxic. Take any kind news for example. we hear a news today and we build our own assumptions around it. We hear some more news tomorrow, rather than taking the new news at its face value, we selectively chose to select section of news to support our assumptions. we should always take the "NEWS" with a pinch of salt, Whatever showed in T.V. or internet might not always be correct or true.
As told in the book, "we are ignorant and would continue to be so". Though we cannot predict any black swan event, what we can do is be prepared for it. That itself puts us ahead of the "sure thing" confident guys , who are just one step away from disaster. This might help us in cutting down our losses during the black swan event , or as in the case of iphones ( 18 yr olds making millions through iphone apps) even profit from it.
Cheers.
Sources : wikipedia, Motley Fool
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Of Swimming tales
Its been almost 3 yrs , since I blogged last but I kept on promising myself that one day I will wake up from my slumber and start blogging again. so here we go! again.
There are many ways to learn swimming . some take classes , some buy floaters or some like me , are just not into it. we went last week to myrtle beach (imagine...in a february), we had a highly enthusiastic driver (more about the gambling habits in a later post), lets call him "sachin"who drove us all the way and back. The conversation between me , him and Arby went like this:
Me : you swim great man, where did you learn it?
Sachin : Funny that you ask. I took some classes at infy, but i learned it during my college days.
Me: thats nice, you had pool in the campus?
Sachin: nope. actually we went to a river nearby and learnt it ourselves.
We learnt it the old fashioned traditional way. we would go to a river then one of the guys would go to one end and the rest would be on the other. Then the first guy would remove his undy and show it to the rest and the rest of the folks have to catch him before he wears his undy back. it was awesome fun
Arby: dude, thats almost a sexual harrasment case in this country and definitely not old fashioned or traditional. by the way how many times did you get caught without the undies. going by the way you swim...
Sachin: err.....no....whatever.
Arby: Were any girls involved in this game of yours? please say yes!
Sachin: Why are you guys always talking about me..........lets change the subject and talk about rehman......Masakali.......Masakali.............
Me: so If you played this game on land, then what happens? do you hide behind huge bushes...this way you could have become an athelete.
I wonder if Michael phelps is aware of this training regime, he could have got couple of more gold medals.
Sachin: Aye Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli MatakKalli Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli Matakalli
Zara Pankh Zhatak, Gayi Dhool Atak aur Lachak Machak ke Door bhatak
Ud Dagar Dagar Kasbe Khooche Nukkad Basti Mein yeaaiyeee yaaiyeee
Atri se Mud, Ada se Ud.. Kar Le Poori Dil ki Tamanna, Hawa se Jud, Ada se Ud, Ud burr burrrr tu Heera Panna Re..
Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli Matakalli
There are many ways to learn swimming . some take classes , some buy floaters or some like me , are just not into it. we went last week to myrtle beach (imagine...in a february), we had a highly enthusiastic driver (more about the gambling habits in a later post), lets call him "sachin"who drove us all the way and back. The conversation between me , him and Arby went like this:
Me : you swim great man, where did you learn it?
Sachin : Funny that you ask. I took some classes at infy, but i learned it during my college days.
Me: thats nice, you had pool in the campus?
Sachin: nope. actually we went to a river nearby and learnt it ourselves.
We learnt it the old fashioned traditional way. we would go to a river then one of the guys would go to one end and the rest would be on the other. Then the first guy would remove his undy and show it to the rest and the rest of the folks have to catch him before he wears his undy back. it was awesome fun
Arby: dude, thats almost a sexual harrasment case in this country and definitely not old fashioned or traditional. by the way how many times did you get caught without the undies. going by the way you swim...
Sachin: err.....no....whatever.
Arby: Were any girls involved in this game of yours? please say yes!
Sachin: Why are you guys always talking about me..........lets change the subject and talk about rehman......Masakali.......Masakali.............
Me: so If you played this game on land, then what happens? do you hide behind huge bushes...this way you could have become an athelete.
I wonder if Michael phelps is aware of this training regime, he could have got couple of more gold medals.
Sachin: Aye Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli MatakKalli Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli Matakalli
Zara Pankh Zhatak, Gayi Dhool Atak aur Lachak Machak ke Door bhatak
Ud Dagar Dagar Kasbe Khooche Nukkad Basti Mein yeaaiyeee yaaiyeee
Atri se Mud, Ada se Ud.. Kar Le Poori Dil ki Tamanna, Hawa se Jud, Ada se Ud, Ud burr burrrr tu Heera Panna Re..
Masakali Masakali , Ud Matakalli Matakalli
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