HassleMe

Set up a hassle now!

Via : The Influence of Atlas Shrugged

As executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute, I see the impact of Atlas Shrugged on a daily basis. I’m continually amazed by how many people, from every walk of life and every part of the planet, from high school students to political activists in countries from Hong Kong to Belarus to Ghana, eagerly tell me: “Atlas Shrugged changed my life.”

Scores of business leaders, from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to young entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, say they have derived great spiritual fuel from Atlas Shrugged. Many tell me that the novel has motivated them to make the most of their lives, inspiring them to be more ambitious, more productive, and more successful in their work.

“You can determine how confident people are by listening to what they don’t say about themselves.”

A nice method for the math instructors - Link :  WHAT IS THE MOORE METHOD?

Character isn’t something you were born with and can’t change, like your fingerprints. It’s something you weren’t born with and must take responsibility for forming.

--Jim Rohn

The other day I was listening to a speech by a very successful businessperson and it was so powerful that I started wondering why do most of the other speeches that we come across in our lives suck.
Look at the voice graph of the speech.

One thing to notice is a distinct pattern of pauses. The speech would have fallen flat with out the pauses. The other aspect is the sharp increase in pitch at regular intervals and for a short duration of time. This points out to a need to a very precise wording that makes a point. Who said making an effective speech is easy . Towards the end of the lecture, the pattern of short but powerful statements increase , thus culminating in to a situation where the objective of the entire speech is conveyed to the audience. I think this pattern holds good for any talk, be it a motivational speech or a sales pitch /elevator pitch / anything for that matter i guess…..Don’t know whether this works for proposing to a girl though :)

Via Venturewoods:

We have example of GrandCentral , a startup which offered a telephone number for life , Once you have a Grand Central Number you need not to change it when you change service provider , move to a new city or whatever . They promised “One Number for One Life ” very romantic .Many people [including me , just for the heck of it ] signed up for it . sometime down the line .Grand Central got acquired by Google . with in few weeks of selling out . Google changed the policy and issued new numbers to existing GC users . There was a small outcry but Google silenced them by offering money for reprinting Biz cards .

Give us the fortitude to endure the things which cannot be changed, and the courage to change the things which should be changed, and the wisdom to know one from the other.

-Oliver J. Hart

A mind blowing promotion campaign…It is spot on .

http://us.slingmedia.com/page/home

Paul graham in his essay How Not to Die   says “Startups rarely die in mid keystroke. So keep typing!”

The following thoughts from Paul Graham makes me feel that NP needs to be brought back in some shape or the other..

So when you release something and it seems like no one cares, look more closely. Are there zero users who really love you, or is there at least some little group that does? It’s quite possible there will be zero. In that case, tweak your product and try again. Every one of you is working on a space that contains at least one winning permutation somewhere in it. If you just keep trying, you’ll find it.

Came across this fact today, Howard Schultz ,Starbucks fame, approached some 275 odd investors to raise money for his first venture which was similar to starbucks. Of 275 potential investors,  260 investors said NO. Imagine a situation like that where you are been told NO , 260 times. I guess that is one key trait of any person who wants to build a successful enterprise..Getting used to taking NO as an answer and still not getting affected by it largely.

A beautiful short essay by Einstein  The World As I See It :

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man… I am satisfied with the mystery of life’s eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence – as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

:) that’s interesting !!

Happy Days is movie directed by Sekhar Kammula. Happy Days is set to be released in September, 2007 all over the world. Movie is going to release on 28 of September in USA and 2nd of October (Gandhi Jayanti) in India. First time in the history of Telugu Film Industry, a telugu movie is releasing in USA first and then in India.

Crout LU Decomposition

This is a neat and an elegant LU Decomposition method which can be coded with  both partial or full pivoting. Came across this algo in Numerical Recipes and loved it from the word go.

Haven’t we all registered at some site or the other to just check out the service ? And every time, we shuddered to give our email address .

Here’s one fantastic service…Just go , create a temporary email and use it for the registration and then it becomes obsolete in 15 min.

GuerrillaMail - Disposable Temporary E-Mail Address

Guerrilla Mail provides you with disposable e-mail addresses which expire after 15 Minutes. You can read and reply to e-mails that are sent to the temporary e-mail address within the given time frame

1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Commerce without morality
5. Science without humanity
6. Worship without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle

      —Mahatma Gandhi

A google search on " row reduced echelon form" - gives the results of principles related to rre. But apart from that one needs to notice what appears on the right hand side.

-————————

Help With Math Homework— Tutorvista..WOW !! I am really thrilled to see an Indian web company having come this long way. I sincerely wish Tutorvista grows beyond imagination and the service becomes damn useful to any high school student who wants a private tutor…

One of the perspectives floating around :

If you are a moral and constructive member of society, you will seek to allocate additional money to an opportunity, up until the point when the next dollar allocated would earn less than the “market” rate of return. A bank may run such allocations faster than what you could hope to achieve on your own. Among other things.

The tools of a mathematician are pencil, paper and waste paper basket. The waste paper basket distinguishes him from a philosopher

Via  North Denver News - Surgically alters thumbs to better use iPhone

Thomas Martel, 28, of Bonnie Brae is a big guy. So he has a hard time using the features on ever-shrinking user interfaces on devices like his new iPhone. At least, he did, until he had his thumbs surgically altered in a revolutionary new surgical technique known as “whittling.”

“From my old Treo, to my Blackberry, to this new iPhone, I had a hard time hitting the right buttons, and I always lost those little styluses,” explains Martel. “Sure, the procedure was expensive, but when I think of all the time I save by being able to use modern handhelds so much faster, I really think the surgery will pay for itself in ten to fifteen years. And what it’s saving me in frustration - that’s priceless.”

One of the popular hospitals in Bangalore is Narayana Hrudayala founded by Dr. Devi Shetty.This hospital is known for cardiac and neuro surgerical treatments. The one thing that strikes markedly different from other hospitals is a special counter for ppl who communicate in bengali. The hospital is said to attract many patients from bengal, Bangladesh etc. A simple act of creating a separate front desk with bengali speaking personnel is sometimes all it takes for a hospital to show it is looking at a bigger picture. Now Dr. Shetty is building a hospital for the Arab world. Sometimes all it takes to build a great enterprise is effective communication.

You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.

  - Olin Miller

Cafe Coffee Day in India

Siddhartha’s family comes from chikmagalur in karnataka , and has grown coffee for generations. Most of the coffee plantation owners were facing tough times as the market prices were not at all commensurate with the effort that goes in to making coffee. The prices an year forward can never be predicted with certainty and plantation owners face a tough time selling their produce. The world wide coffee market is 120 million bags and about $ 7 billion market. If one merely looks at 7 Billion market , one sees a ton of uncertainties and risks. But What Siddharta did was to look at the retail coffee market which is close to 100 billion and not at the problematic 7 billion market. The result is a sprawling retail coffee chain that is growing in India at a scorching pace.

There is always something to learn from reading books of people who have built great companies. In this book, Subroto Bagchi explains in a lucid and in an conversation type style, takeaways from his entrepreneurial career. The book is nicely arranged in to 18 chapters. Here are key points from each of the chapters

When do  I know I am ready ?

If remotely, the thought of safety net haunts you and you cannot talk yourself out of it, then you are not prepared for it

I encountered a strange incident today. As I was leaving Bangalore, there was a need to move my stuff back to Hyderabad. I had called up one of the local packers and movers service in bangalore, one with door to door service, which means they land up at your place, pack all the things that you want to ship to your destination, and deliver at the destination . The charges for the services were definitely high.

Ian Stewart’s books have really caught my attention nowadays. After reading his book, " Letters to a Young Mathematician", I gulped “Nature’s Numbers”. The book is all about seeing nature from a mathematician’s POV.

The book starts off with an introduction of nature and patterns. Patterns of form and Patterns of movement are so widespread in the nature that it is difficult not to observe them. Ripples in the pond, Stripes on Zebra tiger, movement of horses, elephants, mammals all happen based on a pattern. Patterns posses beauty as well as utility. If one were to study the patterns, it would be the best thing to leverage those patterns in our daily life applications. When such a complicated creature like Nature can work with a pattern, it is certain that Pattern would work for a less complex purpose driven application.

A great insight from the post :
You can learn 1000 langugages and still not come up with a single useful application. In Math too, you can know zillion algorithms but you might not be able to identify the problem properly and use one of the tools available. Math like software is a set of tools and one needs to go for breadth-first learning approach rather than depth-first as it gives you the skill to identify the problem which in most of the cases is of utmost importance.

Was just looking at the Church Floor plan for some reason.
Link
Historic Church Floor Plan

Why does the floor plan resemble a cross ? Is there a scientific reason or is it purely an echo of the religious sentiment ?

Till date, this IS the best autobiography that I have ever read. It is the story of  Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple Computers who single handedly designed Apple II. There are so many aspects to the personality of Woz and takeaways from the book that it is hard to summarize in one post. Anyways, I will try to do so. So, here are my takeaways from the book

My self help book reading frequency is pretty erratic.Most of the gyan from these kind of books are common sensical.Having said that, I do read them for the simple reason that it triggers thoughts which motivate me to carry on.

One such book that I picked up recently was " Letting Go of your Bananas" . It’s about 100 pages and can be quickly read in an hour’s time. The metaphor used in the book is derived from the story of a monkey which has got his hands trapped  in a jar. Monkey Catchers in Africa use a jar for catching monkeys. This jar is peculiar in the sense that there are some bananas kept at the bottom of the jar and the jar is heavy enough that it cannot be moved. The only way to take the bananas for the monkey is to put his hand inside the jar and the jar is long enough that no monkey can reach the bananas. Time and again, various monkeys keep their hands in the jar and try reaching the bananas, and in the process get stuck,thus making them easy targets for the hunters.

The director of the firm where I am working had something nice to say the other day. He said that there are three elements needed for a successful career.
T - Talent , O - Opportunities , P - Passion - TOP Theory.
If there is Talent and Passion , Opportunities will come by
If there is no Talent but there is Passion, Opportunities will still come by
If there is Talent but no Passion, there would be no Opportunities that will come by.
A pretty nice way to look at these 3 parameters before choosing a job. Unless you are passionate about the job, you should never take up the job. Usually people look at the opportunities and then start working on their skillset. However most of the times their passion is out of synch with Opportunities and hence their success / joy derived from the work is limited . I guess it all boils down to “Do what you love” - the classic wisdom passed on from ages

If one looks at the Newspaper / Magazine / Journal etc, it looks like there are umpteen random events that are happening in the world. Some look familiar, some look weird, some appear very tragic, etc. What if you were given a looking glass which could trace back the random events to some deep fundamental drivers? Wow! That would be great, wouldn’t it? That’s what Alvin Toffler does through his book Revolutionary Wealth.

I think this is the best post I have ever read on a Startup’s success :

Link :
blog.pmarca.com: The only thing that matters

Saw the coverage of a superb event at Churchill Club
Link : No Plan, No Capital, No Model…No Problem

James Hong, Co-Founder, HotorNot.com  says the ONE thing that every entrepreneur should have in mind while working on an idea is “HAVING FUN”. Just pick up anything that you would work and have immense fun, that’s all it matters.

In the past few days I have come across the following firms which can real killers if everything pans out as they have envisioned.
1.Netvibes  - Exceptionally simple UI for creating webstart pages
2.Coghead - Any non programmer can create a web app . Who said rails makes web development easy ? who needs to develop anything if everything is already available in drag and drop format
3.Next Medium - TIVO solves a problem, but also creates a problem for marketers. Their ads on TV become ineffective, to say the least. This firm works on product placement in the content itself.
4.Blue lithium - My favorite - Serving contextual ads and taking on the mighty google
5.ClearWire - WiMAX firm which is shaking up all the big telcos and cable provider business
6.ZOPA - thought abt such a service while reading “Wisdom of Crowds” Now it has become a reality.
7.Jajah - Free calls with out burden of heavy client, headsets etc
8.Hype Machine - startup by a 20 yearold guy - technorati for mp3 blogs

In India, where mobile population is reaching 160 million, I think there is definitely a scope for a entertainment service like this. I think there are companies in India which would want to give away goods for free for brand promotion.
Check this cool site which has become a craze in US

Limbo 41414

Welcome to Limbo 41414

We launched Limbo 41414 in October 2005 for one simple reason - to help people get more fun out of their cell phones.

Anthony Volodkin , the guy behind HypeMachine, should be credited for his site that has created quite a buzz amongst mp3 lovers. I wonder how his program scrapes only legal content and avoids all the conversations that host mp3s and talk about them. Does he deliberately choose to ignore those sites because he wants the site to be a legal destination for mp3s?

Why cant employees sit in cybercafe and work , instead of you establishing an office for developers?
Thats what this Indian teen is doing
Via - Sify.com

Indian employees of Globals Inc work out of cyber cafes, where they have to pay 15 rupees an hour. “When I look around I see lot of guys of my age hanging out with their girlfriends. I do not feel bad as I have a mission to make my company another Microsoft,” Gopinath said. “Bill Gates is my role model,” he said.

SMS can be used for a lot of low hanging fruits in India. One such service that has seen the light of the day is the Bus time table through SMS. Reports says that the launch of SMS has become a huge hit in Gujarat.

Via : Gujarat ST timetable through SMS

Gujarat Global News Network, Ahmedabad For the first time in the country, Gujarat State Road Transport Corporation has introduced SMS facility for the timetable of the bus service. This was announced by the Chairman of the Corporation G R Alloria today evening. Initially this facility is available for luxury and express buses. He said that ordinary buses will also be covered by this facility in next couple of months. Under this one has to type ’timing

There are 20 million credit cards and 70 million debit cards in India. What will happen to the rest of the folks who don’t have a card ? Mobile payment service is going to be a hit when the India two is made the target population. India two in the words of Kishore biyani is the lower middle class population which is latching on to the mobile at a breathtaking speed.
Paymate with its strategy through debit and credit cards tie ups is not a disruptive service from my perspective.

Mike McCue , cofounder of TellMe networks on Voice Recognition and Mobile search..

Via  Fast Company:

FC: What’s the potential market for voice-powered applications?
McCue: In the enterprise segment, it’s a multibillion-dollar market. Directory assistance is another billion or two. That could grow by $10 billion or $15 billion in 5 to 10 years. Personally, I love the iPod (NASDAQ:AAPL); I have about 30,000 songs on mine. But it’s impossible to navigate with that wheel. It’s crying out for speech interface. That could be huge.

I stumbled on to this article tracing the meaning of the term " Millenial" ( referring to folks born after 1980). The gyan on retention is well worth a read

Link : Retaining Younger Workers in the Workplace - Gen X - Millenial - Baby Boomer

Why shouldnt there be a Tivo for India ? Why hasn’t been there one ?

• Is it because of purchasing power of consumers is limited and would not be willing to invest in an instrument which records their programs of interest ?
• Out of overall 200 Million TV set penetration in India - Rural folks dont mind TV ads
• Marketers still rely on TV for promotional activities and customers are often hooked on to ads. I have seen a lot of folks discuss some of the quirky, catchy ads being discussed over the  lunch table. Does this mean TV as a mode of ad promotion is going to stay for a lot more years
• What will happen to the mobile devices ? Additional connections are 6 million per month . How can one leverage this platform for promotion
• Recent development in terms of sms promotion from theatre services , airline ticketing services, insurance, banking services show various sectors are trying to grapple with the challenges of promoting their product in the 160 characters of an sms

So, can one rule out Tivo type of product in India ?

The story of Pantaloons, Big bazaar and Food bazaar, the stores which brought in a retail revolution so to speak, is something which any aspiring entrepreneur should not miss.

To start with
Who is Kishore Biyani - Born in 1961 to  a business family, was average student and was more interested in the practical aspects of learning, which were not available in the academic setting. From his childhood, he showed interest in organizational skills , be it local dandiya festival or selling stonewash trousers. If you are a student and you see a person wearing a stonewash trouser , immediately you would enquire the outlet  / source of the garment. Kishore Biyani was interested in the business side of the garments. He would immediately source the cloth, order the stonewash trousers from a local factory and sell them at a profit.  He never wanted to enter the family business as it looked like the family members were preservers than entrepreneurs. They were obsessed about financial status that it looked like accountants were running the show.  He considers himself  as creator and destroyer of businesses rather than preserver of businesses.

This is a mumbai based company which is in to b2b services and App-develop-maintain services has managed to rake in 175 crores of revenue for 2006-07.Mahesh Murthy is a co-founder of this firm. What is interesting abt this firm is its foray in to mobile space - with the launch of Mundu Radio and Mundu IM. The other day I came across an ad related to Internet Radio launched by Tata teleservices. What are the kinds of services that would be developed on Mobile ? With close to six million new mobile connections per month, it will be just a matter of time that mobile base would be 500 million, a staggering teledensity of 40 . What is the next killer app on mobile in India ? Will it be the established players like geodesic shine in the market where they would be in a position to burn cash while they ramp up the subscriber base..OR wil it be a nimble startup ?

This is one magazine which highlights what people are in to , in their free time. What are they doing for fun etc. Tracking DIY is a good way to have a sense of trends to come.

Tutorvista.com is an example of a classic case of a succes story in the long tail of education sector. I met one of the developers of the firm at a barcamp and I could visualize that firm has some real quality hackers. Anyways, besides the outsourcing spin on the tutoring biz, I guess the site leverages on the long tail of the need for tutoring kids in USA and satiation of the demand by people sitting in their comfortable homes from their comp

6.9 Billion deal in which 2 biggies merge. One thing is for certain - The brokerage industry is moving towards managed accounts rather than traditional accounts, thus enabling the firms to take a flat fee on the asset size in the account. The need for bank in a brokerage firm is clearly evident from the recent events in the brokerage industry

I have completed missed this item , google acquiring Feedburner!!