This blog is a big fan of Thomas Friedman (Friedman has his own category with six posts). So I would like to share a bit from this article by Norman Solomon which attempts to synthesize Friedman’s brain waves [hat tip: Ashok Bardhan]: Continue reading
Month: October 2006
Demographic Cognitive Dissonance
People who don’t practise what they preach are not necessarily hypocritical. Perhaps they are merely not sufficiently intelligent to realize that what they do is inconsistent with the logical implications of what they preach. This gap between what they insist to be true while doing something which reveals their words to be false can be attributed to what is politely called cognitive dissonance but more accurately should be termed as stupidity.
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Seeking funding?
If you are an entrepreneur seeking funding for your brilliant idea, it pays to understand how VCs and angels think. Sramana Mitra over at Sramana Mitra on Strategy has a series of interviews with VCs and angels. Feel free to contact her if you need advice on any specific ideas you have which requires funding. If she likes your idea, she would provide you access to her extensive investor network, as well as help with business development and customer acquisition.
[Remember: If you get funding, you owe this blog big time. Don’t forget to send in a large check. 🙂 ]
Administrivia: Deleted Comments
If you have recently commented and have not seen it, it is because the last 15 comments were deleted by mistake. Do re-submit the comment if you don’t mind. The managment sincerely regrets the trouble. Those responsible for the mistake will be fired.
Thank you.
Diwali Greetings
Om sarveshaam swastir bhavatu
Sarveshaam shantir bhavatu
Sarveshaam poornam bhavatu
Sarveshaam mangalam bhavatu
Sarve bhavantu sukhinah
Sarve santu niraamayaah
Sarve bhadraani pashyantu
Maakaschit duhkha bhaag bhavet
[Translation]
Auspiciousness be unto all
Peace be unto all.
Completeness be unto all
Prosperity be unto all.
May all be happy
May all be free from disabilities!
May all seek the good of others!
May none suffer from sorrow!
Thundering Airlines
The mother of all thunderstorms is roaring outside the window as I write this from Kolkata. I got here last night from Pune after a brief stop-over in Mumbai.
The sky was ominously dark this morning and now it is pouring so hard that visibility is reduced to less than 100 feet. The thunder and lightening is almost continuous. There is something deep inside which rejoices in beholding the awesome power of nature. There must be something atavistic in this reaction, a genetically programmed response to life-giving rain.
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Mobile Internet and India
“In India, the Future of the Internet Will Be Built around the Mobile Phone” reads the title of one of today’s articles at Knowledge@Wharton. It is an interview with my colleague, Rajesh Jain, CEO of NetCore. Rajesh believes that the mobile phone will be the primary device for interacting with the web for a vast number of users in India. It is easy to follow his logic.
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Found on the web
New and improved 🙂 feature on this blog: “Found on the web.” The inaugural item is the Hubble Space Telescope pictures. Check them out and even download them as wallpaper, but don’t stop wondering how magical the universe is and how fortunate we are to be able to observe it.
A Passage to India
Hi from Seoul’s Incheon international airport. Just a couple of hours lay over in transit from San Francisco to Mumbai.
This is pretty cool. Find a seat, open up the laptop, and you are connected and ready to do business.
At SFO, the Homeland Security code was “Orange.” Which, it appears to me, means that special attention was to be given to frail old ladies in wheelchairs. It boggles my mind — what are these guys smoking. When was the last time wheelchair bound old ladies went ballistic and blew up a commercial jetliner? Someone should clue in the Transportation Safety Authority that there is a definite profile that fits potential suicide bombers and little old ladies don’t fit that, and nor do young mothers with babies in their arms. I saw one such mother made to give up feeding bottles.
It makes me feel very secure (not!). Confiscating toothpaste tubes from the general public can achieve little other than harrassing people who mean no harm. Clue to TSA: start profiling.
Banning Child Labor
From time to time I wonder whether some people are merely stupid or whether they are inherently evil. Or maybe they are actually stupid evil bastards. Just yesterday a report on the NPR show Marketplace got me wondering. It reported that India has recently passed a law outlawing child labor in households and in restaurants. It noted that employing children in factories was already banned.
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