Winter begins!

And so the snowfall starts in Chicago. The next 4 months will be pure torture!

Picture taken from my 19th floor apartment in Chicago. The bottom of the picture shows the snow accumulation on my window sill.

Ridiculous!

I read this article today and was pretty shocked to say the least! I have been fairly indifferent to the presidential race so far, but find it atrocious to hear a fore runner speak this way of a leading candidate, not to mention former first lady (He referred to Ms Clinton with the B* word). I wonder how many votes McCain is going to lose because of that. May be not much considering he didn't have a lot of supporters to begin with.

Website registration images

I know the text in image form which you have to enter while registering into sites is a security feature which is meant to protect the user and the site from unwanted spam and tons of random automatic subscriptions. But I have been noting that recently the text in these images is so crypted, I can barely read it. I was trying to register to a site today and after the 4th time of entering the wrong text I'd had enough. To make matters worse, I had to re-enter my email address and password every time I entered the wrong text. Attached below is a sample image. May be somebody can look at it and guess what the text is, because honest to god, I had a hard time figuring it out.

Finally at the 5th attempt I managed to get in!

The post about my other post!

If ever there gets published a book on Blog etiquette, then writing a post on a blog, publicizing a post that you wrote on your other blog would not be in that list. Yet I am going to do exactly that. The dilemma I face is, I just listened to a podcast which I felt compelled to blog about. Since the subject is about Business and Management (B&M), I wrote about it in my B&M blog (duh!). However, since this was a post I was excited about and felt that there was true value in the post, I wanted as many people as possible to read it and since more people read this blog than the other blog, I felt compelled to write about the other post here. One wouldn't have to do this if there are a 1000 people reading your every post. But considering the fact that I can count the number of people reading my more "popular" blog with one hand, a little extra publicity, I figured will not kill me.

Basically all I am saying is, go read this post.

AG's Memoirs

This past weekend, I picked up a copy of the Alan Greenspan's memoir, "The Age of Turbulence" after I had read a lot of good things about it. I expected this to be a dry tale of an economist's experiences as the Fed Chairman, who led the country through a series of booms and recessions and ofcourse 9/11. Surprisingly though the book has so far been great fun to read and although I am through only 100 of the 500 pages, I am already looking forward to completing the book.

The book is split in to two major parts, one has to deal with AG's life and experiences and the second part is his take on the way things are proceeding in the global economy and what he predicts will happen.

Even The Economist had good things to say about the book...

“The Age of Turbulence” is a dull title, tending to confirm one's fears, and that risible subtitle, “Adventures in a New World”, is fooling nobody. Yet, despite everything, the book turns out to be first-rate. It engages on different levels: it is intelligent in a way that few popular books on economics manage or even try to be; and, wonder of wonders, it is a good read. No doubt, Mr Greenspan had help with the writing: he acknowledges Peter Petre, a talented co-writer, as a collaborator. For this one can only be grateful. Who would have guessed that 500 pages in Mr Greenspan's company could slip by so easily?"

Being a long time The Economist reader, I can assure you they don't say such good things about books, especially economics books very often. Check it out. Btw, the book is on sale, 30% off at Borders.

A little Apple for everyone!!

Check out the new goodies from Apple...their new range of Ipods. I love Steve Jobs and his keynote addresses. They are awesome and seriously cool. Period.

I already have an Ipod, but am seriously tempted to buy the new Ipod touch.

signing off from my MacBook...(you get an idea about how much I like Apple products!

Powered by ScribeFire.

1st Anniversary

Exactly 1 year ago, this day, I drove my BMW out of Erhard BMW Farmington Hills dealer. As cliched as it sounds, its amazing how fast time passes. Anyway the good thing is my beamer feels just as good to drive today as it did the first time I test drove it. The car and its fabulous engineering still amaze me and I look forward to driving this vehicle for many more years to come. The saying goes, "Once a BMW driver, always a BMW driver" and unless something really bad happens (I hope not), that's saying is going to be true in my case.

The bad thing is, I got my first ticket yesterday :( Attached below are a couple of pictures...again taken from my cellphone, so excuse the poor quality.

It pisses me off everytime I read something like this. When will this freaking genocide in the name of war against terror end? What a ridiculous waste of human lives, resources and money!!

Powered by ScribeFire.

Good Stuff

I thought I was too old to be drooling at bikini clad women in magazines. I just thought I had grown over it, yet every now and then a magazine comes up with a set of pictures which manage to capture both my attention and my imagination.

Jessica Biel's pictures in the July 2007 GQ is one of those rare few pictures. I find them sensual and artistic and definitely worth checking out.

Btw, I got a 18 speed mountain bike couple of weeks back. It kinda reminds me of my school days when I used to bike 6 Km one way to school everyday. Also it works out great helping me avoid the Chicago traffic and parking hassles. Attached is a picture below. It was taken with my cellphone, so bear the poor quality.

Virginia Tech Shootings

I am totally appalled and stunned by the Virginia Tech shootings. I have been thinking about what the motive of the guy who opened fire was. What beats me is how could somebody just go and shoot 32 innocent students? I mean seriously...I have been very very pissed before...and some people have irritated me so much that I have wanted to shoot them down, but again I fail to see what the logic is behind shooting 3 dozen could be.



Having graduated from college recently, I am just totally shocked. In the 3 years I was in UK, not once, even in the wildest of dreams did I imagine something like this could happen. My heart felt condolence to the victims and students of Vtech. Also I am scared this is going to become the "Universities 9/11"  and that universities are going to incorporate  a whole bunch of new security measures which in the name of protecting the students, makes life hell for people. Kind of like what 9/11 did to frequent flyers.

Powered by ScribeFire.

New Blog!

In the last 8 months, I have been more and more interested in Business and Management. Ofcourse reading a whole bunch of different blogs and business and economics related magazines has helped in giving me a better understanding of the concepts which has furthered my interest on these topics. Along those lines, I just recently started writing a new blog called Amateur thoughts on Business and Management. (http://thescienceofmanagement.blogspot.com) So head on over there and share your thoughts and comments with me on my writings and viewpoints.

I still plan on continuing to write this blog. This is going to be more for my rants and other things not related to Business or Management. On the other blog, I will be discussing interesting articles I read, my thoughts and views on current happenings. (currently I am thinking about writing a post about the Blackstone IPO)

In essence what I am saying is that, Amateur thoughts on Business and Management is going to be the official website of the brand "me".

Food for Thought

I read this in a bookstore couple of days back. Fast Company has published a book containing the best articles it has published in the last 10 years. This article was featured in that book and it caught my attention.



I found the article interesting. If nothing it it will give you some thing to think about this weekend.

powered by performancing firefox

Photos..

Sometime thinking about Photography, I feel digital cameras and cheap SD cards are the worst things that could have happened to my photography skills. I often find myself to be a clicker...anytime I am at any place which is half decent and I have a camera in my hand, I go click! click! click! I think well...what do I have to lose? I have a 1 gig card, which can hold like a million photos (actually close to 400) and I always travel with my laptop, so at the end of the day I can transfer my pictures and start all over again. So essentially at the end of the trip, I have over 500 pictures (almost always) and yet I am not satisfied with most of them.

Recently though, I have been concentrating quite a bit on taking good pictures in the night with manual settings in my camera. They take longer to take, you need more patience and they look beautiful if they come out well. I figured this is a good way to slow myself down. Also typically I need to rest my camera somewhere (I don't travel with a tripod as I find it too painful to carry) to take pictures without blurring them, so again on the whole I tend to spend more time analyzing the shot, trying different angles etc., I was in London this past weekend and here are a couple of pictures I took that I was rather proud of. I recommend you see it full size to be able to fully appreciate the colors and the light.

Parliament from the east bank of Thames

The London eye from the west bank of Thames, right outside Westminster underground station.

Digital Camera Tips

Thinking about buying a new digital camera? The flickr camera finder is a great way to find good digital cameras. It has a listing of the most popular cameras used to take pictures uploaded in flickr along with other data such as number of photos uploaded, camera details, photos uploaded yesterday etc., If you have a particular camera in mind you can look up data for that particular camera along with its price range. The best part is at the bottom you get images that were taken using a particular camera that appeared in Explore. What a great way to see the kind of pictures that the camera you are planning to buy is capable of capturing. It is so much better than seeing the standard flower image that appears in most camera manufacturer's websites.

I was surprised to see that my Canon SD450 is the 7th most popular Canon camera and the most popular point and shoot digital camera (6th is Canon SD400 which is a point and shoot as well, but basically just the previous version of the SD450). Flickr rocks...there is no arguing that!!

(Attached below is a snapshot of my camera details from flickr)

New Year Resolutions

• Despite being in a world of increased ease in communication, I feel I am distancing myself more and more from my friends. Especially in the last few months I often find myself not feeling like talking to anybody and being contended just sitting home with a book or a DVD. Clearly I know this has to change. My friends define who I am and I wouldn't have an identity without them. Starting 2007, I am going to make a increased effort to keep in touch with my friends. Close friends more often through email and phone and maybe even more personal visits (when possible), the next level through emails and the rest through Orkut scraps.
• I am going to pursue Happiness. I want to fully realize the joy of giving. I want to share more than I am willing to. I want to help develop, motivate the people I work with and share the knowledge I have with them (in a non bragging way!) This doesn't mean letting everybody else go before me, it means I want to grow, but want to make sure the people I work with grow with me. I might not be qualified to do this, but I am going to do the little bit I can. If there is something I can do to help somebody, I know I should, I will. Of course most of this is just plain good Karma, something I believe in more than in religion.
  
• In the spirit of continuous improvement (of ourselves), I think we have to be more critical of ourselves and forgiving of others. Sadly most of us (I am probably first on that list) are currently more critical of others and forgiving of ourselves. The funny thing is I realized this while driving in India on this trip. People swear and curse others for aggressive, rash driving yet they drive the same way and think its alright. I guess its human tendency..if something happens to us we think its misfortune, if the same thing happens to somebody else we think they deserve it.
• Environment - I don't think the world is coming to an end, but however that shouldn't be a reason for inaction on our part to try and preserve our environment for the coming generations. Last year I switched all the bulbs in my house to energy saving lights and started re-cycling PET and Glass bottles. I know its nothing radical, but still is a small thing I can do. I hope to continue along those lines this year.
• Read more....finish a book every 2 weeks. Knowledge is power and there is no better way to gain knowledge than to read books.
  

Some of this might sound silly, some way too cheesy, but everyone of these are things that I have put a lot of thought into and believe in throughly.

As 2007 starts, I welcome the new year with passion, exuberance, smile and more importantly an open mind and hope that whatever happens, good or bad, I learn valuable lessons from them and improvise.

Have a stupendous and sensational new year!!