A Beginner's Mind

"Genius is 1% inspiration + 99% perspiration"     - Edison I might have heard this saying first at least 10 years back. It has been on my mind ever since and I have been trying to find examples that prove this. At first glance we see hundreds of examples which show us how a person got inspired from an event or something in nature for e.g. Newton being inspired by an apple falling on his head, then how by putting in enormous effort he comes up with "a work of genius", in this case, theory of gravity. There are similar examples in business and success stories everywhere you look. Most book stores and libraries are loaded with books dealing with this topic. But, I have never agreed either with Edison's quote or the numerous examples that (supposedly) prove it. Until now I wasn't even able to summon the courage to speak this up. Whenever I tried, I was told who are you to criticize Edison? As if Edison is supposed to be a revered religious figure as opposed to

Note: C.L.A.W - stands for Crude Look at whole. It's a term coined by physicist Murray Gell-Mann.  Watch this video to learn more The current stage of social media tells us what, how, where, but fails to answer Why? It also fails (at least partly) to combine WWH to answer why? I believe that social media is the fabric necessary to make search sensible. It's the layer that underlies semantic web. Consider how search works. I want to search for the latest android phone available in Bangalore. I key in the words & I see a list of links that lead me to a page where I might find the information I am looking for. Else I go back to the results and open a new page. Basically the pages are ranked by relevance calculated by keywords and importance calculated by referrals. However when we put the social layer on top of search we might see results which are in this form: Two of my friends bought a new android phone from shop x in Bangalore and this is what their social stre

This post has been written using Google's transliteration tool.  Please excuse the minor spelling mistakes. आज दशहरा है और मुझे बचपन का रावण याद आ रहा है. समय के साथ यादें बदलती और महत्वपूर्ण होती जाती है. कुछ यादों को हम बदलते हैं , कुछ हमें बदल देती हैं. दशहरे के साथ मेरी एक ऐसी याद जुड़ी है जो न  मैंने बदली है और ना ही इतनी महत्वपूर्ण है. लेकिन, आज इस  याद का एक  नया रूप मेरे सामने आया. यह बात है 1990 की. मैं कमला नगर में अपनी नानी के साथ रावण देखने गया था. रावण देखने का उत्साह तो था ही, साथ में मेले वाली छोटी दुकानों से तलवार, तीर धनुष , मुखौटे  और गरमा गरम समोसे चाट खाने का भी काफी चाव था. दशहरे की शाम मैदान में काफी भीड़ होती है, रावण के पास पहुंचना मुश्किल होता है. सौभाग्य से मंडली के एक कार्यकर्ता हमारे घर में किरायदार थे और रावण को पास से देखने की मेरी इक्षा के पूरक भी. नानी रावण को पसंद नहीं करती थी, कौन करता है, लेकिन मेरे लिए रावण सिर्फ अधर्म और बुराई का प्रतीक नहीं था. सात साल की उम्र में बुराई और अच्छाई में फर्क करना मुश्किल होता है. जैसे तैसे शर्मा जी कि

I watched Gamer on TV. Undoubtedly it’s gained prime position in my list of “Why the hell did they make this movie?” The only reason I summoned the courage to finish the movie was Michael Hall . Being an avid Dexter fan and completely unaware of Mr. Hall’s other work I thought I’d see what other ranges he has. I’ve always liked his acting as Dexter Morgan. Dexter’s character displays a wide range of emotions with no facial expressions, solely on the basis of narration & dialogue. I’ve always wondered it would be really hard to show such a range without the aid of facial expressions. It’s not that this is unheard of in acting, a recent example being Mathieu Amalric’s portrayal of Jean-Dominique Bauby in Le scaphandre et le papillon . Matheiu uses the same concept, but the difference between the two extremes is that he has demonstrated other ranges in films like Rois et reine & Munich but Michael hall seems incapable of producing any facial expressions. I watched a few e

A friend:  Dhoni got married  Me:  Big deal !!  A friend:  You really hate sports that much? Me:  Cmmon Man' I don't HATE sports , I just don't get a kick out of it. A friend:  How is that even possible? How can anyone not get excited during an India-Pakistan cricket finals? How can anyone not get excited during Soccer world cup finals? I don't see it. All the people I know feel the same way. I think you pretend. I think you actually get as excited as us, but you wear this mask to look different from the rest of us. Me:  Whoa! That's serious allegation man. Let me ask you this, do you get excited/agitated/emotional when you look at a clear night sky?   A friend:  You're kidding me! Who would?  Me:  I do    A friend:  Bullshit! Why?    Me:  Well, it's hard to explain. But, I get this feeling of insignificance, that overwhelms me. What I mean is that, when I look at the sky and see all those stars, I feel this uneasin

I have been reading Rick Smith's LEAP lately. Not only has it helped me understand my true passions and strengths in a new light, but also helped me leverage them in my current position. According to me, the goal of life is happiness. Since our work fills most part of our lives, it is very important to be intrinsically satisfied with it. I have experienced this first hand in my previous jobs. It's hard to invent a purpose in work that is not emotionally rewarding. Which implies that it's hard to be successful doing something 9 hours a day and like it when you clearly know that you don't. (Read this & this to know more) We cannot expect to make the right choices at every point of our lives. We cannot control which school we go to as a child, we cannot control the learning environment throughout our teenage; & here in India it's even harder to decide your professional education (Bachelors) as you're decision is largely controlled by family ex

I spent this Sunday exploring Bangalore with H. Even after staying here for more than 2 years, I haven't explored any of the major attractions of the techno capital. Neither have I seen cubbon park situated a humble kms distance from my office, nor bannergatta national park, amongst the malls only forum and oasis hold a little charm for me. Oasis for its walking distance from my house and forum for being within my modest driving radius It's not that I am an anti mall person or a bore, I am actually faraway from it, but only the dark places in this die-pre-midnight city ever held any charm for me. So I know about the underground but I am lately realizing that the world ive been living in, a world of music, passions, kind strangers, panipuri wallahs who narrate their folk tales over a badi goldflake , late night omlette stalls, high heeled babes drooling over their less than alive boyish friends, waiting impatiently for the egg–dosa, after the humpy thumpy aura of gatore

I've always used IMDB as a beacon for exploring movies across all genres. It works pretty well, not always though, but until recently, I did not know that the collective knowledge system (CKS), the likes of Wikipedia, Google's projects , Yahoo answers etc. could be a real bitch. Much has already been said about the evils of CKS, the copyright infringement, the lack of solid evidence to back up the facts, the impact of these tools on public judgment. I am totally against all these allegations; the bottom-line is that they are disseminating information, mostly right, to a large audience at no cost. Only in the 21 st century is collaboration at such scale, possible. I was reading this post on collective knowledge system that reinstated my belief on the system But... While chatting with a friend today, both of us being avid movie fanatics, we discussed NSFC bollywood works of art. The ones by eminent artists like Mithun da, Raj Kumar, Dharamji. Despite me expressin

Avatar was publicized to be the Movie of the decade. I watched its trailers both the making and film trailer at least thrice a week. Perfect advertising. I know several of my friends to be in this state of trance: mesmerized by Cameron's vision, overwhelmed by his 15 year persistence, overpowered by his imagination. I was under influence too. As 18 th December drew close, my breath rose. There were so many whom I had personally influenced. You have to watch this movie man! Its gonna be awesome! Here I'll share the link with you. Watch the trailer first and then see the making video. Look, how much effort and vision goes into making a Hollywood flick like this. Compare it with apna desi samaan. To make 3 idiots these guys took 4 years. Avatar created a new world during that time. A new language, A new species, A new culture , A new technology (3D motion Capture), A new business. So came the fateful day of 19 th December when I decided to enter Pandora. 3 hours later