Entrepreneur Anthem

There is no day. There is no night.

Entrepreneur_motto

It is day when we work, it is night when we rest.

We belong to the world.

We ask the questions. We answer the questions.

We set the upper limit of success, as we have seen the deepest trenches of failures.

We have tasted the best of wines, as we have tolerated those hungry days.

We were once the few caveman who made fire, And now here we are, searching it in ourselves.

Review of a book review : The View from the Center of the Universe

I recently happened to come across this review about a book titled "A View from the center of the Universe", by Joel R.Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams. The caption for the book is "Discovering our Extrodinary place in the Cosmos". I could not help but copy-paste the review here, and express my love for the way the review was knit. I really wish, you could spend some time reading it. Thank you, if you chose to read.

These kind of books have a charm of their own. However, the aim of the blogpost is not to spray some words of appreciation or criticism for the book. Rather, we here, have something more subtle to appreciate. The reviews about a book, by real book lovers can be identified with the sheer fragrance of intellect that emanates from the writing, all the while using a rather unimaginative invention of humans, called words.

Words are packets of data for conveying information, and they have their limitations. Firstly, you must be aware of the word the author writes, for the communication to happen between you and him/her(author). In the five paragraphs quoted below, the author (who unfortunately could never be identified by me with simple Googling techniques) has written a brilliant review about the book and this wise man has knit those words beautifully. 'A good read', to be precise. Enjoy.

The married couple of philosopher Nancy Ellen Abrams and cosmologist Joel R. Primack are uniquely placed to discuss how our understanding of the Universe affects how we perceive our role in it. The ancient creation myths provide comfort and meaning, but they are fantasies. In contrast, modern cosmology offers a glimpse of reality but leaves many people cold. In View from the Center of the Universe, Abrams and Primack challenge themselves to try and get the best of both world views.

In the distant past, we convinced ourselves that we had a special place in the Universe. Geographically we were at the center of space, with everything revolving around us, and biologically we thought that humans were an exceptional creation. But as each century passed, we realized that we are less and less special. Today, we see ourselves as insignificant in the context of the whole Universe. The Copernican revolution relegated and redefined Earth as just another planet, and made the Sun the hub of the Universe. Then astronomers showed that the Sun is not even at the centre of the Milky Way, and eventually it became clear that there are billions of other galaxies, which made Earth seem trivial.

The problem with becoming increasingly insignificant was appreciated as far back as the seventeenth century by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal: "I feel engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces whereof I know nothing and which know nothing of me. I am terrified . . . The enternal silence of these infinite spaces alarms me."

The existence of dark matter only further relegated humanity, as Primack pointed out in 1984: "Yet another blow to anthropocentricity: not only is man not the center of the universe physically (as Copernicus showed) or biologically (as Darwin showed), it now appears that we and all that we see are not even made of the predominant variety of matter in the universe!"

But Abrams and Primack argue that humans still hold a central and special position in the Universe, perhaps not geographically but in many other ways. For example, we are special because we are made of the rarest material in the Universe, namely large atoms. Also, we live at a central time, because most nearby galaxies are past their violent youths but are not yet senescent. And we live at the midpoint of our planet's life, which is a few billion years before it will be roasted by our Sun swelling into a red giant. And humans have a reasonably central size, roughly halfway between the smallest length scales (10-33 cm) and the distance to the cosmic horizon (1028 cm)

 

Book and Info links

http://viewfromthecenter.com/

http://physics.ucsc.edu/~joel/ElixirInterview.pdf

Why buy Aakash Tablet? Kindle Fire Vs Aakash

Aakash tablet, is undoubtedly a pride for India. In the sense that, we Indians were able to think one huge step beyond the price hype created about the tablets by the world's leading techno cartels and lobbies. Just the way micromax did with its phones, which has not brought Nokia down to its knees in India with its Asha series of phones!

To begin with, the tablets are simple devices. See if a tablet is all you actually need using this checklist:

  • If you browse a lot, read emails and reply in one-liners
  • Consume movies and videos like food, and music like water
  • And importantly if a keyboard for you comes into picture only to login and type in your password.
  • Reading news online and ebooks (if you don't do this now, you soon will)
  • STOP: A tablet is for you. 

In this blogpost lets look at some simple math as to why should one buy a tablet, more precisely, an Aakash tablet.

Imaginary Scenario: Let's say, the product sucks.

I am writing this article, when nobody per se has really used this product, not atleast in large numbers. So lets start with the following assumptions.

  1. The touch sensitivity is not-that-sensitive
  2. The processor is slow
  3. The video buffering gets stuck, as the processor is not great
  4. The battery back up is not very great
  5. Gaming experience is not all that adrenaline

Here are some Aakash review videos from Youtube...Have fun..take rest and continue reading!

 

OK, Lets spill some Numbers...

The cost of Aakash Tablet: Rs.2500(Lower end), Rs.3000-1(Higger end called Ubislate7+), but since the name Ubilate7+ sounds weird like some American CIA operation codename to catch Jason Bourne, we will just stick to the Indian-masala name Aakash, which BTW means Sky.

Usage Scenario: News subscriptions

Cost of subscribing to The following for one month.

Altogether, Rs.300/month * 12 = Rs.3600 

Forget about subscribing to Ney York times, Playboy and Le monde in India. But hey, for all the newspapers and magazines we just mentioned above, there is a website, which I presume doesn't cost you anything! Think about that. How about reading all of them on a tablet, and clicking the ads now and then, so that the newspapers get some money, which will prevent them from converting the online version of their news into a paid thingy. We all hate paid apps and softwares, don't we. Ok, if we hate paid so much, what business do we have with Kindle?!

It is worthwhile to be reminded now that the Aakash tablet is only Rs.3000. A Life time (5-6 years!) investment for a reading device. How to do this? Is explained in this article that I wrote a few days back.

Usage Scenario: Audiobooks and ebooks

With an application like Aldiko, if you just have the epub format of your favorite books, you are pretty much all set to read books on Android.

Other ebook readers of Note: 

Usage Scenario: Kindle for Android

Unfortunately(for Amazon), Amazon already provides a kindle Reader for Android, and also now has an independent app market for Android based mobiles and tablets. And worth mentioning is that the Kindle fire, is more of a service and less of a tablet in itself. It is a great thing to buy if you have already spent hundreds or may be even thousands of dollars on ebooks and audiobooks and music. In this case having a kindle fire would be of some use. Even under this scenario, it can be no-brain-ly deciphered that any Android device, with the related apps namely, Kindle and Audible for ebooks and audiobooks respectively, can be put to the same use.

Cost of Kindle Fire : $200(minus 1) = approx. Rs.13,000/--in India

Cost of Aakash Tablet: Rs.3000(minus 1)=approx. $60

Conclusion

If the product has a good capacitive touch screen and if it comes with an O.K response to touch, without any doubts this tablet can be bought. If not for being used as a full time laptop alternative, but atleast for watching movies and reading newspapers, ebooks and browsing. And moreover, there is an USB port... just saying.

Aakash Tablet Specifications: from http://www.akashtablet.com/

Specifications Aakash (Ubislate7) Ubislate7+ (The upgraded version of Aakash)
Availability NOW! Late January
Pricing Rs.2,500 Rs.2,999
Microprocessor Arm11 – 366Mhz Cortex A8 – 700 Mhz
Battery 2100 mAh 3200 mAh
OS Android 2.2 Android 2.3
Network WiFi WiFi & GPRS (SIM & Phone functionality)
  SOLD OUT
  But you can always Pre-Book your Ubislate7+ by clicking on the Pre-Book Button  

 

 

 

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A trial worth making, a pain worth taking.

A trial worth making, a pain worth taking. 
Will this speak for the future? I do not know my friend. 
For what I know is that the future my friend, is the outcome of trials. 
And the greatness of the future is proportionate to today's worthy pains. 
Hence, suffer. 
For it is only humans who can endure it. 
If not for suffering why would we be born a human.

Just a click away from you...
Site: www.nram.co.in
Call : +919986158351
Google me as: "Ramreva"

What a blog is not

How many times do we get the doubts about the blogs we write?
Are we doing it right? What else should I do?
Or worse, into what style should I morph my writing so that it becomes a more-cooler, more-trendy, or simply into a more-read blog.
The blog, from its bigger word 'web-log', actually meant an online diary, where you post your unique thoughts. So that everyone's voice could be heard alike.
Until or unless you are in China, where you could be screwed for expressing ideas, I don't see a point in why should someone change their writing style to what people want to read, than keeping it the way you want to blog.
There clearly is a confusion here. Writing, taking into account the ego and biases of the readers, is writing for a book, now called ebooks! A blogger has the greatest liberty as a writer, almost equal to that of the President!
So please blog for what you think. Not for what others might think about it.
This is a good example blog...Seth's blog
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/sethsmainblog/~3/5mmyPr--n30/lazy-jour...

Giving Birth to yourself: The Online You

Internet was born before we were born. We are the digital natives. We are the cyber stigmata(click for my older srticle on cyber stigmatas), who type faster than we think, and have a dark region on our wrist, and know that the thumb is for the 'space' key of our laptop keyboard. 

Internet

Image by hdzimmermann via Flickr

Not all the people who were born before the Internet, have adapted to the newer world with ease. They are typically identified by the typing-with-two-finger (t-WTF) syndrome. This reminds me of a saying, 'All generalizations are wrong, including this one'. Generalization is a bad habit, because it is only when one looks beyond generalizations, can the real probing and learning occur. Hence, we will not generalize the people born before the Internet to be Digital Aliens. But they were lucky...

They, unlike us, did not have the responsibility of giving birth to themselves and watch themselves grow up. Yes, we are talking about social networks here and about our digital clones that we create online.

 

Image representing Twitter as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

 

This now reminds me of a tweet. Yep, found it on twitter and also the voice that said it.

Who you really are, you're on Twitter; what you want to be, you're on Facebook; what you're not, you're on LinkedIn :)

We do share a lot of data about ourselves in the Internet. But this is not something to be afraid of, but definitely something we all need to be cautious about.

However, this blogpost talks about the people who were born before the birth of the Internet who missed the one great opportunity Internet has given the Digital natives like you and me. The things that they clearly missed are these...

 

  • The fun in giving birth to your own-online-digital-self 
  • Have fun in looking him/her/it grow up and make new friends, who again are the online-digital-selves of somebody you might or might not know in organic life.
  • At times commit terrible mistakes and later repent for having put "that" pic on fb/twitter
  • Learn a lesson or two from such misbehavior

These are my favorites...

  • Feel your real self getting older and wiser, but can choose to keep that youthful photo for your digital-self, for that will be his or her face forever, until you choose to change his/her age
  • Finally watch the your real-self die, while letting your online-self to live forever, until the last day of the Internet/world, whichever comes earlier.

One word of caution

Your online-clone will continue to live forever, and will neither age nor change until you choose to change him/her. So be a good parent to yourself and grow that online-child of yours with utmost care. For he/she/it can reveal a lot about you to your kids, to the future generations or to the Artificially Intelligent machines of the future.

Read an older article on Netiquette : HERE

 

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Parenting and Children: A status symbol issue?

English: Family of Great Crested Grebes. Two a...

Image via Wikipedia

 

"Don't just sit there doing nothing, like a useless piece of stone. 

Get up and get going.

You got to get up to show up, and show up to succeed in life",

...said his mother.

The kid was an extension of the parent's status symbols, like all other well chosen things that reflect class and taste. Years from now as an adult, from his well built successful future, the kid would be searching his childhood in the long lost past. Just to find none.

 

Years passed. The younger got old, and the old got older.

He was now old enough to think, and wise enough to comprehend the folly of his parents. His wisdom made him a better parent. He knew his children were human beings, and not human doings.

"Foolish mother", his mind spoke to him, "she even defined what the success for a stone would be like".

"I won't let my kid's mind to speak to him/her the way my mind just spoke to me", this, he tought to himself.

The kids who are unable to feed their own hunger, in the poor countries are luckier than the kids in the richer countries, who are unable to feed their parent's ego and status demands.

 

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15 ways Android helped me save money (lots of it)

LAS VEGAS - JANUARY 08:  The Motorola Backflip...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

A bit of History First

It was roughly a year ago that I got my first Android phone. Unlike the advertisements in India, where a first android has to be a dead cheap phone, mine was a rather very expensive Motorola Backflip. I gave motorola Rs. 17000/-- for the having manufactured me this phone. The device came with Android 1.5 (with no update till date for Asian customers), which is the element of surprise to anyone who buys the device, for a high price tag. Thanks to Cyanogen, I could crack my device to Android 2.3. Except for the Motorola Nav (original Motorola GPS-Nav software), I have never missed the previous version.

The money saving Part

Here is the Savings calculation followed by it's 'Hows'?

Lets do this in Indian Rupees(per year) and convert it to Dollars, for ease on both Indian and International Eyes alike.

My phone has replaced quite a number of devices that were in close contact with me. Such replacements can be branded a victory when I don't miss the old devices anymore.

Here is a list of Devices that I can now do away with, because of greater efficiency that the Android phone provides me. And also given is the approx. spending on everone of these, every year.

  • Calendar : Rs: 200 per year
  • Wrist watch : Rs.1200 (assuming my Casio edifice [Rs.6000] is used for 5 years) 
  • Personal Organiser : Rs.800 ( a good leather bound one)
  • Alarm / Time piece : Rs. 250 
  • Pomodoro timer : Rs.250
  • iPod : Rs. 4000 min. to Rs. 20000 max.
  • At times a laptop : Can't be totally done away with, I'm typing with it
  • About 1025 books in Aldiko : (Rs.200 * 1025 assuming each book is appoximately Rs.200, which is an under-estimation = Rs.2,05,000/--)
  • Offline Dictionary : Rs.75/--
  • Newpapers and Magazine : Rs.2400/--
  • Voice recorder : Rs. 1500/--
  • To do lists : Rs.80/--
  • Inland letter and posts (email) : Rs. 2000 per year (by the number of emails we send)
  • Innumerable Volumes of Encyclopedia : (Rs. 12000)
  • Intangible Savings : (Intangible... I reapeat..intangible...)

TOTAL = "Rs.2,45,755/--" OR "$4,640.40" every year

 

The 'Hows' of it...

1. Calendar

Carrying around a calendar is a pain, given in size and dimensions. Android calendar stays within your phone, and the best part is it gets sync'ed with Google online calendar, hence doubling as a productivity tool and organizer

2. Wrist watch

LAS VEGAS - JANUARY 08:  The Motorola Backflip...

 

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The greatest use I put my Casio-Edifice watch is to complement my formal dressing, and thats all, beyond which I never use it. All phones have a clock screensaver option, and Motorola Backflip has a damn-good-looking clock.

3. Personal Organizer

This could be a painfully long list. Rather lets stop with the most essential ones. 
  • A day journal to note down thoughts: Springpad
  • A long term notes manitaining tool: Evernote
  • Read-Later for Webpages : Instapaper {converted into a book( .epub format using the Instapaper website and used with Aldiko book reader)}
  • A torch Light : Though not an organizer, without this things could get disorganized in the dark
  • Documents: Word, powerpoint, excel and such office suite stuffs
  • A many more, for now, lets stop here

4. Alarm / Time-piece

An alarm just needs a gentle pat to silence it or snooze it. However, the Android app "Alarm Clock Extreme", makes you solve simple to advanced maths to enable silencing it. Waking Up Guaranteed.

5. Pomodoro Timer

A pomodoro timer is something cute enough that I would like to buy, unfortunately I don't know where would I get one in India. I searched it in app market and.....hundreds of apps for it!

Unlike Apple app store, Android apps are mostly free, and also good. "Paradox!"

6. iPod 

Only if someone wants to flaunt a white wire connecting the ears with the jeans pocket, it makes sense to use an iPod. With a support for 16 to 32GB memory card, why would I need a 8 GB overpriced iPod?! Besides have a look at all the Music options I can use in Android system
  • Podcasts
  • Online radio
  • Winamp player
  • a host of other players, which does even lyrics search on the Internet
  • Sharing my #np (now playing) to twitter
  • Social Music (knowing what others are listening and start tuning in into their playlist)
  • Amazon Audible.com app for audiobooks
  • and What not!

7. At times a laptop

As the name Backflip says, the device has a Keypad. A robust one indeed. There are apps for Wordpress, Posterous, Blogger, Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, into all of which I actively participate and write articles, mostly from my mobile phone, from the most unusual places possible. 

8. About 1025 books in Aldiko

Aldiko Book reader is an award fantastic ebook reading software. It's free, as in beer. A few months ago, there was a torrent file doing rounds by the name "Thousand books to read before you die", it has now been removed due to copyright probs. I saved the equivalent of 1025 book's price. And thats all I am saying.

9. Offline Dictionary

There of course is online "Your dictionary" app, in the app market, but there are also many free offline-dictionaries for you to download. Vocabulary is knowledge right?

10. Newspapers and Magazines

Some of the Newspapers I really like are The Hindu, The Economic Times, and the Times of India. The International ones I like are WSJ, The NY-times, Ney-Yorker and Le monde.

Economic times and Times of India have a brilliantly designed Android app. The other websites work really fine in Opera browser or even the Android default browser.

11. Voice Recorder

I used to use a voice recorder a lot. Not anymore. I don't even use the Android default anymore. It is the Soundcloud app that I use now. It does quite some fixing on your recording and your recording is now podcast ready. Play guitar? Speak well? This is the place for you!

12. To do Lists

We all use to-do lists, some in the mind and some on paper. Some use it to buy milk and groceries, some use it for GTD (Getting-things-done). It's our own personal experiment. Whatever be the use, I use an app by the name : any.do. The design of this app is great and intuituive, something even Apple.Inc. can learn a thing or two from.

13. Post and Mail

Thanks to the e-mail, the image of a mail-train transporting written (not typed) posts can now be a part of classic or Gothic novel. Every email you send is saving you what? a cent or two? and how many do we send each day?!

14. Innumerable Volumes of Encyclopedia

This is somewhere everybody would agree with me. Android users or not. Invariably every Internet user would agree. Information availability has never, ever, in the history of mankind, been so easy and freely available.

15. Intangible Savings

This could include a huge variety of things, based on one's perception. Based on my perception, here are a few. 

Savings in Time/Money:

  • time taken to flip pages to find a page in a book
  • time wasted in bookmarking
  • time wasted in searching the written to-do list paper
  • money and time wasted in reaching the post-office and on stamps
  • Online shopping is a huge saving of petroleum, more often than not cheaper goods too
  • Ability to do things, when you can and not when you have to:
  •      Read news in office
  •      Listen to podcast while driving
  •      schedule a tweet/mail for later
  •      write first and schedule the blogpost for later
  •      reminders set for your event n calender and to-do list
  •      you get the idea right? In short : The ease of time-management

Conclusion

The Caveman with the sharpest weapon won. He evolved into what we are today. Today again, the human with the sharpest tool shall win and continue to evolve.

 

Here is a list of Further reads, that you could make use of : Happy reading.

 

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Communication Gap : A funny article on how it 'happens'

 

 

 

If you thought I was acting information hungry always, think again and think from where would I have gotten this gene to be info-hungry. You guessed it right, my dad is the source. This article which follows was a kind of read-it-later saving which my dad had saved fifteen years ago from some magazine. Remember, this was before the age of Evernote and Instapaper! Dad wrote it down on normal-paper. I found the battered + dog-eared note recently while shifting our home. I took a few minutes to carry the legacy forward, and here is the good old article in my blog, hopefully for my kid to resurrect it someday. -- Ram.N @ramreva

 

HIV Love: short story

Life imposed some changes on him.

He was in a new land, eating new foods and speaking new language.

With all things new, a new woman too came by.

There was something deep about her.

A dark secret hidden amidst her fearless look at all things life.

This intrigued him. A new love. She was hesitant.

He wanted to share his life with her. She was hesitant.

She was dying from the inside, her immunity was the food for another organism.

The remnant of an unclean past. The soul was now cleaner.

But little did the virus understand her now better soul.

The virus had a genetic karma to kill her.

He wanted to share his life with her. He loved her, still.

He loved her, hence he now chose to share her death.

They went ahead to love and live, until death unite them apart.

The Tomato story: How to free the Superman tied by your neck-tie

A Jobless man once applied for the position of an 'office boy' at a firm you might know about. The HR manager interviewed him testing his suitability for the job.

'You are employed', said the manager after weighing his abilities enough. Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the documents to fill in and also the date when you may join.

The man replied 'Thank you Sir, but, I don't have a computer, nor an email id'.

Day_job_superman


'I'm sorry', commanded the HR manager and continued rationalizing. 'If you don't have an email, that simply means you do not exist. And one who doesn't exist, cannot have the job.' Having better command of the corporate language and reasoning, the sentences could be constructed by the manager in absolute coherence. That particular sentence would never have reached the intellect of the office boy, but then that is how the literates are; always pleasing their ownselves with their mental masturbation.

The man left the office bathed in AC, with no hope towards the roads bathed in sunlight. He did not know what to do, but he did have $10 in his pocket. He then decided to go to the supermarket and buy 10Kg tomatoes. He then sold the tomatoes in a door to door rounds. In less than two hours, he succeeded to double his capital. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home with $60.

The man realized that he could survive this way, and started to go everyday, earlier. And return, late. For his life was not awaiting him after his day job, but was rather dependent on it. He liked the job, for it fed him. The food tasted better, as the job made him hungry. He and his job were one happy family. With happiness, his money multiplied too.

Shortly, he bought a cart, then a truck, and then he had his own fleet of delivery vehicles.

5 years later, everybody knew the man and his humble beginnings. The quality of the tomatoes he traded never declined, for they bore a very close resemblance to the color of the fluid that gave birth to his sweat, which evaporated before even they touched the tar of the roads.

It now was time he invested and insured, like all wise men with money and future. Future is the only commonality between a wise man and a less-wiser man, for the future is equally uncertain. But the wise men plan for the probablities, and that makes all the difference.

He called an insurance agent, and chose a lareg-sum protection plan.
When the conversation was midway the broker asked him his email id.
The man replied,'I don't have an email id', again. Taking him to the start of the circle, only this time the path he walked around the circumference made him say that without a 'sorry' in his sentence.

The broker was curious enough and asked, 'You don't have an email, and yet have succeeded to build an empire this big? Imagine what could you have become if you had taken one small step and learnt to use e-mail?'


The man thought for a while and replied, 'Yes, I'd have been an office boy at a firm you might know'.

 

Take-aways:

  • If you know you have the skills, success is more about choosing what not-to-do.
  • Keep a not-to-do list in your journal
  • Choose the 'Road less travelled by, and that will make all the difference.'

Give-aways:

  • Share this story to your heart's content. Copy / paste / alter / modify / make-bad / make-good / make you version / just-spread!

Digital Art : Musing with Thin Lines

Musing is best done in a form only specific to humans. Of them all, art is the highest order activity that the Humans can perform, and if you are an art-person, be proud! For it is with the art, the time periods are classified.
Yes, art froms certify that we are the Highest order organisms that ever lived on this planet, or better will ever live on this planet, and hopefully will continue to live forever on this planet...now this is asking for too much!
Onemindofuniverse

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