Wednesday, October 28, 2009

So do you leave it to the last minute?


Many impressive people I know are terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn’t always bad? Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you work on, you’re not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I’d argue, is good procrastination. That’s the “absent-minded professor,” who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he’s going while he’s thinking about some interesting question. His mind is absent from the everyday world because it’s hard at work in another. That’s the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. They’re type-C procrastinators: they put off working on small stuff to work on big stuff. What’s “small stuff?” Roughly, work that has zero chance of being mentioned in your obituary. It’s hard to say at the time what will turn out to be your best work (will it be your magnum opus on Sumerian temple architecture, or the detective thriller you wrote under a pseudonym?), but there’s a whole class of tasks you can safely rule out: shaving, doing your laundry, cleaning the house, writing thank-you notes—anything that might be called an errand. Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work. Good in a sense, at least.


The people who want you to do the errands won’t think it’s good. But you probably have to annoy them if you want to get anything done. The mildest seeming people, if they want to do real work, all have a certain degree of ruthlessness when it comes to avoiding errands. Some errands, like replying to letters, go away if you ignore them (perhaps taking friends with them). Others, like mowing the lawn, or filing tax returns, only get worse if you put them off. In principle it shouldn’t work to put off the second kind of errand. You’re going to have to do whatever it is eventually. Why not (as past-due notices are always saying) do it now? The reason it pays to put off even those errands is that real work needs two things errands don’t: big chunks of time, and the right mood. If you get inspired by some project, it can be a net win to blow off everything you were supposed to do for the next few days to work on it. Yes, those errands may cost you more time when you finally get around to them. But if you get a lot done during those few days, you will be net more productive. In fact, it may not be a difference in degree, but a difference in kind. There may be types of work that can only be done in long, uninterrupted stretches, when inspiration hits, rather than dutifully in scheduled little slices. Empirically it seems to be so. When I think of the people I know who’ve done great things, I don’t imagine them dutifully crossing items off to-do lists. I imagine them sneaking off to work on some new idea. Conversely, forcing someone to perform errands synchronously is bound to limit their productivity. The cost of an interruption is not just the time it takes, but that it breaks the time on either side in half. You probably only have to interrupt someone a couple times a day before they’re unable to work on hard problems at all. I’ve wondered a lot about why startups are most productive at the very beginning, when they’re just a couple guys in an apartment. The main reason may be that there’s no one to interrupt them yet. In theory it’s good when the founders finally get enough money to hire people to do some of the work for them. But it may be better to be overworked than interrupted. Once you dilute a startup with ordinary office workers—with type-B procrastinators—the whole company starts to resonate at their frequency. They’re interrupt-driven, and soon you are too. Errands are so effective at killing great projects that a lot of people use them for that purpose. Someone who has decided to write a novel, for example, will suddenly find that the house needs cleaning. People who fail to write novels don’t do it by sitting in front of a blank page for days without writing anything. They do it by feeding the cat, going out to buy something they need for their apartment, meeting a friend for coffee, checking email. “I don’t have time to work,” they say. And they don’t; they’ve made sure of that. (There’s also a variant where one has no place to work. The cure is to visit the places where famous people worked, and see how unsuitable they were.) I’ve used both these excuses at one time or another. I’ve learned a lot of tricks for making myself work over the last 20 years, but even now I don’t win consistently. Some days I get real work done. Other days are eaten up by errands. And I know it’s usually my fault: I let errands eat up the day, to avoid facing some hard problem. The most dangerous form of procrastination is unacknowledged type-B procrastination, because it doesn’t feel like procrastination. You’re “getting things done.” Just the wrong things. Any advice about procrastination that concentrates on crossing things off your to-do list is not only incomplete, but positively misleading, if it doesn’t consider the possibility that the to-do list is itself a form of type-B procrastination. In fact, possibility is too weak a word. Nearly everyone’s is. Unless you’re working on the biggest things you could be working on, you’re type-B procrastinating, no matter how much you’re getting done. In his famous essay You and Your Research (which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter what they’re working on), Richard Hamming suggests that you ask yourself three questions: What are the most important problems in your field? Are you working on one of them? Why not? Hamming was at Bell Labs when he started asking such questions. In principle anyone there ought to have been able to work on the most important problems in their field. Perhaps not everyone can make an equally dramatic mark on the world; I don’t know; but whatever your capacities, there are projects that stretch them. So Hamming’s exercise can be generalized to: What’s the best thing you could be working on, and why aren’t you? Most people will shy away from this question. I shy away from it myself; I see it there on the page and quickly move on to the next sentence. Hamming used to go around actually asking people this, and it didn’t make him popular. But it’s a question anyone ambitious should face. The trouble is, you may end up hooking a very big fish with this bait. To do good work, you need to do more than find good projects. Once you’ve found them, you have to get yourself to work on them, and that can be hard. The bigger the problem, the harder it is to get yourself to work on it. Of course, the main reason people find it difficult to work on a particular problem is that they don’t enjoy it. When you’re young, especially, you often find yourself working on stuff you don’t really like– because it seems impressive, for example, or because you’ve been assigned to work on it. Most grad students are stuck working on big problems they don’t really like, and grad school is thus synonymous with procrastination. But even when you like what you’re working on, it’s easier to get yourself to work on small problems than big ones. Why? Why is it so hard to work on big problems? One reason is that you may not get any reward in the forseeable future. If you work on something you can finish in a day or two, you can expect to have a nice feeling of accomplishment fairly soon. If the reward is indefinitely far in the future, it seems less real. Another reason people don’t work on big projects is, ironically, fear of wasting time. What if they fail? Then all the time they spent on it will be wasted. (In fact it probably won’t be, because work on hard projects almost always leads somewhere.) But the trouble with big problems can’t be just that they promise no immediate reward and might cause you to waste a lot of time. If that were all, they’d be no worse than going to visit your in-laws. There’s more to it than that. Big problems are terrifying. There’s an almost physical pain in facing them. It’s like having a vacuum cleaner hooked up to your imagination. All your initial ideas get sucked out immediately, and you don’t have any more, and yet the vacuum cleaner is still sucking. You can’t look a big problem too directly in the eye. You have to approach it somewhat obliquely. But you have to adjust the angle just right: you have to be facing the big problem directly enough that you catch some of the excitement radiating from it, but not so much that it paralyzes you. You can tighten the angle once you get going, just as a sailboat can sail closer to the wind once it gets underway. If you want to work on big things, you seem to have to trick yourself into doing it. You have to work on small things that could grow into big things, or work on successively larger things, or split the moral load with collaborators. It’s not a sign of weakness to depend on such tricks. The very best work has been done this way. When I talk to people who’ve managed to make themselves work on big things, I find that all blow off errands, and all feel guilty about it. I don’t think they should feel guilty. There’s more to do than anyone could. So someone doing the best work they can is inevitably going to leave a lot of errands undone. It seems a mistake to feel bad about that. I think the way to “solve” the problem of procrastination is to let delight pull you instead of making a to-do list push you. Work on an ambitious project you really enjoy, and sail as close to the wind as you can, and you’ll leave the right things undone

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Y-Jesus?


Is Jesus God?

Have you ever met somebody with such personal magnetism that he/she is always the center of attention? Possibly his/her personality or intelligence---but something about him/her is enigmatic. Well, that’s the way it was two thousand years ago with Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ greatness was obvious to all those who saw and heard him. But, whereas most great people simply fade into history books, Jesus of Nazareth is still the focus of numerous books and media controversy. And much of that controversy revolves around the radical claims Jesus made about himself.
As an unheralded carpenter from an obscure Galilean village in Israel, Jesus made claims that, if true, have profound implications on our lives. According to Jesus, you and I are special, part of a grand cosmic scheme, with him as the center of it all. This and other claims like it stunned everyone who heard them uttered.
It was primarily Jesus’ outrageous claims that caused him to be viewed as a crackpot by both the Roman authorities and the Jewish hierarchy. Although he was an outsider with no credentials or political powerbase, within three years, Jesus changed the world for the next 20 centuries. Other moral and religious leaders have left an impact---but nothing like that unknown carpenter from Nazareth.

What was it about Jesus Christ that made the difference? Was he merely a great man, or something more?
These questions get to the heart of who Jesus really was. Some believe he was merely a great moral teacher; others believe he was simply the leader of the world’s greatest religion. But many believe something far more. Christians believe that God has actually visited us in human form. And they believe the evidence backs that up. So who is the real Jesus? Let’s take a closer look.
As we take a deeper look at the world’s most controversial person, we begin by asking: could Jesus have been merely a great moral teacher?

Courtesy: Y-Jesus <http://y-jesus.com/jesuscomplex_1.php?gclid=CImS45CttJ0CFQkwpAodDiEDiQ>

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Rethinking the status of Women in Islam




"A woman shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable; but men have a degree of advantage over them and Allah is exalted in power" - Al-Qura'an - [02:228]

Towards Understanding this Verse:
The first line enunciates the position on the rights of women as against men. "A woman shall have rights similar to the rights against them," provides the basic principle and is applicable in all spheres of life - political, social, economic, educational, recreational etc... The clause "... but men have a degree of advantage over them (women)" needs careful examination.

It may be construed to mean that, therefore, women should be given constitutional, legal and moral safeguards to ensure 'equity', or that since men enjoy a degree of natural advantage, they are entitled to additional privilegdes and rights.

The choice between interpretations would depend upon whether Islam is advocates social justice with special concern for the weak and oppressed or is supportive of the law of the jungle wherein might is right.

The entire texture of Islam thought is unmistakebly of the former interpretation, to the unqualified of the latter one.

It is true how Islam is much more vast than we have consumed of it. It should be our own undertsanidn and our own benevolence of thought that must penetrate through the true meanign of the Quran and the path leade by Allah [Subhana Ta'ala] the most merciful, the most beneficient indeed.

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

History's Greatest General.[Book Review]Every Penny paid.

Each of the 30 beautifully prepared double page spreads describes the life, career, tactical traits and conquests of one of history's greatest military commanders.

On the downside, this book won't provide you with a detailed biography on each commander, and nor does it go into any great written detail about any single commander's greatest battles.

However this books wins in so many other ways. The overview of each individual, from Julius Caesar, through Hannibal, via Rommel, to Norman Schwarzkopf (to name a few), is superb. You really get a feel for where these people came from and how they rose to become masters of the battlefield. I was particularly surprised at how objectively the work had been pulled together, as it celebrates the command skills of those whom we might traditionally look upon as both friend and foe.

Each page is well thought through, with punchy text, bright, clear graphics - most of which is contemporary artwork - and break-out boxes containing further interesting information. Above all - the pièce de résistance - are the pull-out, folded battle maps. Fantastic!! Each map covers troop movements and engagement plans for a famous and challenging battle, one for each commander. Frankly, they make the book - it is a more interactive, more engaging and tactile work as a result of their inclusion.

This is a very good effort. Its a beastie of a coffee table book, sort of "pop-up" for grown-ups with a military history interest. I must admit, I thought it was worth every single penny.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

India - US Join on defence 20July2009

This statement was issued by the governments of the United States and India after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s meetings in New Delhi on July 20, 2009.

External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed to building an enhanced India- U.S. strategic partnership that seeks to advance solutions to the defining challenges of our time.

They agreed to strengthen the existing bilateral relationships and mechanisms for cooperation between the Government of Republic of India and the Government of the United States of America, while leveraging the strong foundation of economic and social linkages between our respective people, private sectors, and institutions. Recognizing the new heights achieved in the India - U.S. relationship over the last two Indian and U.S. Administrations, they committed to pursuing a third and transformative phase of the relationship that will enhance global prosperity and stability in the 21st century.

Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton will chair an “India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue” that meets once annually in alternate capitals. This dialogue will focus on a wide range of bilateral, global, and regional issues of shared interest and common concern, continuing programmes currently under implementation and taking mutually beneficial initiatives that complement Indian and U.S. development, security and economicinterests.

Secretary Clinton looks forward to welcoming Minister Krishna for the first round of the Strategic Dialogue in Washington, D.C. in the coming year.

ADVANCING COMMON SECURITY INTERESTS

Recognizing the shared common desire to increase mutual security against the common threats posed by international terrorism, Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton reaffirmed the commitment of both Governments to build on recent increased coordination in counter-terrorism. Secretary Clinton invited Home Minister Chidambaram to visit Washington in the near future. External Affairs Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton also reaffirmed their commitment to early adoption of a UN Comprehensive Convention against International Terrorism which would strengthen the framework for global cooperation.

DEFENCE CO-OPERATION

Noting the enhanced co-operation in defence under the Defence Co-operation Framework Agreement of 2005, External Affairs Minister and Secretary Clinton reiterated the commitment of both Governments to pursue mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of defence. External Affairs Minister Krishna announced that both sides had reached agreement on End Use Monitoring for U.S. defense articles.

SEEKING A WORLD WITHOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS

India and the United States share a vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. With this goal in sight, Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton agreed to move ahead in the Conference on Disarmament towards a non-discriminatory, internationally and effectively verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. India and the United States will also cooperate to prevent nuclear terrorism and address the challenges of global nuclear proliferation. A high-level bilateral dialogue will be established to enhance cooperation on these issues.
CIVIL NUCLEAR CO-OPERATION
Building on the success of the India –U.S. Civil Nuclear Initiative, on July 21, India and the United States will begin consultations on reprocessing arrangements and procedures, as provided in Article 6 (iii) of the 123 Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation between India and the United States.

GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS

Secretary Clinton affirmed that multilateral organizations and groupings should reflect the world of the 21st century in order to maintain long-term credibility, relevance and effectiveness, and both Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton expressed their interest in exchanging views on new configurations of the UN Security Council, the G-8, and the G-20.

PURSUING SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
As members of the G-20, India and the United States have pledged to work together with other major economies to foster a sustainable recovery from the global economic crisis through a commitment to open trade and investment policies. Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton reaffirmed the commitment of both Governments to facilitating a pathway forward on the WTO Doha Round.

They pledged to co-operate to not only preserve the economic synergies between the two countries that have grown over the years, but also to increase and diversify bilateral economic relations and expand trade and investment flows. The two sides noted that negotiations for a Bilateral Investment Treaty would be scheduled in New Delhi in August 2009. They resolved to harness the ingenuity and entrepreneurship of the private sectors of both countries with a newly-configured CEO Forum that will meet later this year.

EDUCATION

External Affairs Minister Krishna and Secretary of State Clinton affirmed the importance of expanding educational cooperation through exchanges and institutional collaboration, and agreed on the need to expand the role of the private sector in strengthening this collaboration.
SPACE, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION
Recognizing the great potential in India-U.S. science and technology collaboration, the two sides have concluded a Science and Technology Endowment Agreement, and signed a Technology Safeguards Agreement that will permit the launch of civil or non-commercial satellites containing U.S. components on Indian space launch vehicles. Both sides welcomed India’s participation in the FutureGen Project for the construction of the first commercial scale fully integrated carbon capture and sequestration project and India’s participation in the Integrated Ocean Development Project, an international endeavour for enhancing the understanding of Earth and Ocean dynamics and addressing the challenges of climate change.
HIGH TECHNOLOGY CO-OPERATION

Noting the high potential that exists due to the complementarities in the knowledge and innovation-based economies of the two countries, it was agreed that the agenda and the initiatives in the bilateral High Technology Cooperation Dialogue should continue, with the objective of facilitating smoother trade in high technology between the two economies reflecting the present strategic nature of the India-U.S. relationship.

It was also agreed that working groups would be formed to focus on new areas of common interest in nano-technology, civil nuclear technology, civil aviation and licensing issues in defence, strategic and civil nuclear trade.
ENERGY SECURITY, ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton pledged to intensify collaboration on energy security and climate change. Efforts will focus on increasing energy efficiency, renewable energy, and clean energy technologies through the India-U.S. Energy Dialogue and a Global Climate Change Dialogue.

Both sides also agreed to launch a process of bilateral scientific and technological collaboration to support the development, deployment and transfer of transformative and innovative technologies in areas of mutual interest including solar and other renewable energy, clean coal and energy efficiency, and other relevant areas.

India and the U.S. affirmed their commitment to work together with other countries, including through the Major Economies Forum, for positive results in the UNFCCC Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen in December 2009.
GLOBAL ISSUES
The two sides noted the valuable engagement between both Governments on global issues of common concern such as strengthening democracy and capacity building in democratic institutions as co-founders of the UN Democracy Fund.

The two sides agreed to develop a Women’s Empowerment Forum (WEF) to exchange lessons and best practices on women’s empowerment and development and consider ways to empower women in the region and beyond.
CONCLUSION

Minister Krishna and Secretary Clinton reaffirmed that the excellent relations between India and the United States rests on the bedrock of kinship, commerce and educational ties between the Indian and American people.

Secretary Clinton thanked External Affairs Minister and the people of India for their warm reception and hospitality.

Lets buy a piece of Micheal - $15 only

TIME Magazine is an opportunist...
Like this recent July 09 issue of TIME Magazine, there is an advertisement on the last page, selling something that looked like a Cover Page - and YES it was; a cover of TIME Magazine 1984. The cover sported a unique portrait of MJ that was specially created by Andy Warhol for TIME Magazine.
So according to the ad, now this portrait is available to public [everyone] as a print-out, 'framed', or 'unframed' on as low as 15 something Dollars.





Selfishly did TIME Magazine plan to make money out of an artists death, whether he R.I.P's or not, they are out there making a blast of a monetary gain.
So what exactly is this called? 'Merchandising MJ'?, or more dramatically 'Feeling for the artist?', or they mentioned in the ad, 'Preserving the art?' or so they implied......
The point is if TIME felt so much, and wanted to celebrate MJ, they could have offered some of these framed portraits as gifts to different museums, libraries and other such places. Instead, they are off selling a unique piece like this to the masses with such a petty price tag is pretty insulting to not only the immense significance of MJ but also to the role that MJ played and how he contributed to the entire World's Music Industry.... He was ahead of our time and we couldn't catch up...

The ad persuaded in its last line "OWN A PIECE OF HISTORY" [while we make money out of it]. Did they not do it in his life because ????
I am sorry I'm blank here... and I'm sorry MJ they are taking advantage of your absence ... and I assure you, your real fan wouldn't go for the offer - if that is to de-value your presence.

I mean C'mon TIME; you make me bite my nails off.
Xoxoxo


P.S: Im not buying it - He's too prestigious for me to 'OWN' him. :P

Friday, July 17, 2009

I lay alone

I lay alone.
All on the road.
Blunt in my words.
I sing the song of lonliness.

They go past me.
Look at me..?
they do sometimes.
Sometimes, they don't.
Like, I am in-evitable.
In this maddening crowd.
I lay alone.

Im juvenile.
So what, if I have to work in the sun???
Bare foot.
Empty Stomach.
Drenched in sweat.
I know they shrug me off...
and that is why.
Over here..
I still...
Lay alone!

And when tiredness is past my solitude.
Again..
I come back here..
to my throne.
Under this maple tree.
To lay alone.
And so I, lay alone.