Why can't we can't decipher the Indus script?

The answer to this intriguing questions, is right here.

Geek, Nerd or Dork - What are you?

This will help you find the answer!

Screaming for Attention

Smart phones that scream if lost or stolen!

Growing Old (Relatively)

All of us are growing older every moment. I am doing that. You are doing that. Every one is on this one-way trip to being older every moment.

Different people have different ways of going older. Some become senile. Some turn contemplative. Some turn philosophical. Some give up. Some become mature. Some become uninterested.

Me? I am turning younger! I did not believe it initially but now I am convinced that my tastes are becoming younger everyday.

Take a simple example. Music. When I turned 4-5, I discovered these two great things called Radio and TV. They were controlled by the government and I developed a taste for Oldies. From that age the junoon went in all directions old. I became an oldies junkie! However, In the last 1 year or so, I have noticed that I enjoy new songs more than earlier. While I still enjoy oldies, I enjoy new ones too. And the preference for oldies is going down too, although only a bit. Quite the reverse of what one expects!

The same goes for movies, clothes choice and past times and life in general. I enjoy things that are enjoyed by people younger to me.....and less of what is normally expected of my age. Now, is that a case of delayed adoloscence kicking in again, or simply an effect of so many young people around me in my daily work remains to be analysed! Any thoughts?

Why you shouldn't marry a career woman

An interesting article that tries to work out the causation and co-relation of labour specialisation, marriage, careers, divorce and a host of other similarly related and complex issues.

Have a dekko!

Laloo to teach management at IIM-A

Lalooa Express Chali Hai Vastrapur Ki Taraf. Aap bhi baith jaao.

ICICI Bank

I am a consumer of ICICI Bank. I am fairly satisfied with the banking division with no real complaints. However this page seems to suggest otherwise!

Or as we say "Are you wise or otherwise?"

Hrishikesh Mukherjee

Hrishida is dead. An era passes by! Who can ever recreate the magic of Anand, Mili, Chupke-Chupke and Golmaal? The middle-class sensibility he evoked in all of us, the magic he wove on screen, the simple stories that touched our hearts, made us laugh and made us cry are going to live on screen forever.

I am sure, a moment's silence and a silent prayer is not enough in his case. Let us remember him in the style he wanted death to come!

Zindagi Aur Maut Uparwaale Ke Haath Mein Hai Jahapananh! Hum Sab Rangmanch Ki Kathputliyan Hain Jinki Dor Uparwale Ki Ungliyon Se Bandhi Hui Hai. Kab Kaun Uthega Koi Nahin Bata Sakta. Ha ha ha!!!.
(We are all puppets in the hands of the supreme being who holds the strings of our lives. We will never know which string he will pull next).

Macro-Economics: Funny Video

A funny video on macro-economics! Don't miss it! Have a look here

Advice to All You Graduates: Let's Start With That Daily Latte . . .

I read this on The NY Times. Good piece of advice for youngsters joining the corporate sector!

This is the season for giving advice to graduates as they enter the workplace. Instead of listening to yet another recitation of the usual admonishments to "change the world," "carpe diem," or "wear sunscreen," those graduates — unless they are already trapped on the nonpaying internship hamster wheel — need to hear how to manage their paychecks.

Parents may have tried this. And many will undoubtedly send this article to their children.

But, dear graduate, before you wad this up and toss it next to the keg still sitting there from last week's party, consider this: If you think it is tough living on very little now, imagine what it will be like when you are old and sick.

Surveys say most of you already suspect Social Security will not be around after mom and dad deplete it sometime during your peak earning years. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center found that 61 percent of Americans 18 to 29 years old favored a system of privatized retirement savings accounts.

Let's start with the easy stuff first.

Make your own coffee. You probably know you spend a lot at Starbucks, a company that collected $6.4 billion from coffee drinkers last year. You probably don't have any idea how much of that total came from you. A calculator at www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi let's you figure that out and also forecast how much you will spend over a decade of coffee breaks. (This Web site contains a treasure trove of financial planning calculators.) Say you spend just $3.50 every workday for your latte. If you drank the free office brew instead, you'd have more than $11,500 to play with after 10 years.

Does coffee shop coffee taste better than the free stuff? Probably, but ask yourself, do you want to live in a roach-infested studio apartment with two roommates your entire life?

By the same logic, if you smoke, now is a good time to quit. Doing so will save you on average $25,600 over 10 years.

Learn to cook. Unless you have learned the art of sneaking into conferences at hotels to snag a breakfast croissant or cocktail-hour shrimp, you need to reduce your dining budget. A twice-a-week kung pao chicken takeout habit can easily drain you of about $10,000 over 10 years.

At the very least, learn how to pack a lunch. Taking your lunch to work may seem like the equivalent of sitting with the nerds in the school cafeteria, and going out to lunch with colleagues can sometimes be a smart career move. But bringing your lunch lets you be more choosy about who you are eating with and saves money. How much? Back to the online calculators (www.hughchou.org/calc/lunch.cgi) and you'll discover that the savings could be as much as $23,000 in 10 years.

The tally so far: $34,500 (for the nonsmokers), or enough to make a down payment on a $172,500 house. That won't get you much in most big cities, so you really need to exert yourself.

Pay yourself first. If you do everything suggested so far, you haven't had to sacrifice much except perhaps a regular lunch with the office jokers. Now, prepare to sacrifice.

Set aside 10 percent of your paycheck in a savings or brokerage account separate from where the rest of your money goes. You'll be less tempted to spend it if it is hidden away there, unattached to a checkbook or an A.T.M. card. If your employer has direct deposit of paychecks, your paycheck can probably be directed to different places.

Here comes the tough part. You are going to squirrel away this money in addition to the pretax money that you take out of your paycheck to save in the company 401(k). Only 31 percent of workers 18 to 25 participate in a tax-deferred 401(k) retirement plan, according to a recent survey by Hewitt Associates, an employee benefits consulting firm. The others undoubtedly assume that they'll get to it later. About two-thirds of workers 42 to 59 have money set aside in a 401(k).

There is an important reason you want to start early, even though it hurts. Say you withhold $375 a month for your 401(k). In 40 years, you'll have $750,000. But those who waited a decade to get started would have only $377,000.

And guess who delayed? Mom and dad. The average amount in a 401(k) is less than $60,000, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade association of retirement fund companies. Generation X isn't in any better shape. A study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that 49 percent of those born from 1965 to 1972 won't have enough money at retirement to maintain their standard of living.

Another bit of advice: Stick the money in the broadest stock index fund offered by your plan, not bonds and not a money market fund. Sure, the markets may stumble at some point during the next 45 years, but history has shown that they will rise over a period that long. You take risks when you are young.

Ignore your raises. Every time you get a raise, and you'll get them because you are working hard instead of spending money you don't have, pretend you didn't get one. Bank the entire amount.

Over time, you'll start spending the money. It's human nature. But you'll start spending it more slowly. You'll keep the car another few years. You won't immediately move to a new apartment. All that helps money to accumulate.

By this point, you may be screaming: "I can't afford to do this. There will be nothing left for me to live on. Have you seen my student loans?"

A few words about those loans. The government will make its annual adjustment of interest rates on existing student loans on July 1 to reflect recent increases in all interest rates. Consolidating your loans at a fixed rate to lock in a lower interest rate is one possibility, but you need to calculate if the longer time frame of such loans — and the greater overall interest payments — offset the savings from the lower interest rate. (You can't consolidate consumer loans or credit card debt with the student loans.) You can always pay a loan off early once your salary increases.

Now, back to the hectoring. Having less to spend can help you spend less on frivolous things and save for worthwhile causes. Having less will also make you work harder to get more. If you are comfortable, you get complacent.

Don't borrow to buy depreciating assets Almost every consumer product from an iPod to a sofa is worth less the moment you buy it. You are just paying extra for it with a loan. Borrowing, by the way, means taking out a loan, buying it on installment or using your credit card when you don't have the money to pay off the balance. If you can't afford it, don't buy it.

An exception is a car, which may be a necessity that would be out of reach otherwise. One option to consider is a used car coming off a dealer's lease. They tend to be driven carefully and there are a lot of them thanks to recent incentives from manufacturers. Keep the term of the loan short to minimize cost. The latest edition of the Consumer Reports "Buying Guide" lists the most reliable used models, including the best ones for less than $6,000 like the 2002 Saturn SL sedan and the 2000 Toyota Echo. The guide also includes the less reliable models like the 2002 and 2003 Mini Cooper and the Volkswagen Beetle from 1998 through 2004.

Protect your credit. Eventually you will have to borrow money for a car or a home. If you want to pay as little as possible in interest, you want pristine credit. So make yourself a credit card company's worst customer: pay your bills on time and never carry a balance. No exceptions. To help avoid temptation, use no more than two credit cards. Try to find one that gives you rewards — airline ticket rewards or cash — for using it, but still won't charge a fee for that privilege.

Another technique to cut down on incidental expenses is to train yourself to use the A.T.M. only once a month. Take out enough cash to get you through the month, and when you run out of cash near the end of the month, stop spending. Don't grab for the credit card.

Now go out and seize the day. And wear sunscreen.

By DAMON DARLIN
Complete Article available at The NY Times Website

An "ode" to RM Singh

RM Singh, ex-principal of my alma mater, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, was a strange man. He ruled with an iron fist and was terror-personified in the college. Arbitrariness was his biggest forte!

He has resigned and there is a palpable sigh of relief and a wave of jubiliation amongst the students/alumni. The man, who single-handedly damaged the college is out now! The college was known for its students, its activities and was considered the best college in Asia for an undergraduate course in management. While the reputation is still intact, it has not the desired progress. Hopefully with his resignation/ouster, things will limp back to normal.

I recently chanced upon a poem, an "ode" to him! Have a look. Thanks to Orkut for this!

Un pake hue sangemarmari baalon mein,
Chamchamati si sunehri maang…
Bas wahi kahin se shuru hota tha,
Hamaare us azeez ka rubaab…

6 foot 4 inch ki us shaksiyat mein bada hi dum tha
Na jaane kyun unhe, bachchon se pyaar thoda kam tha
Kalaf dhula safari suit hafte dar hafte chamakta tha…
Aur usi ki jeb mein kahin, kisi bachche ka shani bhatakta tha

Seena wo taankar, jab college mein chalta tha
Kasam Khuda ki, ek ek ka susu nikalta tha.
Apni char deewari ke dhooein mein, jab tak nahi wo kho jaata tha…
Koi mai ka laal tab tak, canteen jaane ki na soch paata tha.

Vidambana badi ajeeb thi yeh, pal pal main gaur karta tha…
Us shaks nahi….. uski shaksiyat se main darta tha.
PRINCIPAL…aisi takhti unke office ke bahar latakti thi…
Jaane par kareeb, bachche to kya, teacher ki bhi phat ti thi.

Yaad hai mujhe kaise unhone 'Golu' ko first year mein rulaya tha
'Nikaal dunga tujhe'…aisa bol, Dilli Police ki tarah dhamkaya tha
Apne saathiyon ke dukhdon se hamesha main anjaan tha
Ek din aisa bhi aya jab mere paas bhi fine bharne ka farmaan tha.

Kabhi Teacher's Day, kabhi farewell…na jaane kahaan kahaan se log aate the,
Unke bhashan se oob, table fan ki hawa mein hum so jaate the.
Har farewell pe sochte the naachenge gaayenge,
Pata nahi hota tha ki 'sahab' ke hukum se guards humein hi bhagaayenge.

Khair…mausam guzre, zamaane guzre,
Kisse naye kuchh puraane guzre.
Koste hain aaj bhi, kabhi waqt ko, kabhi kismat ko wo…
Unke gusse ki aag se jo chand bewakoof ashiq - deewaane guzre.

Na jaane kahaan se aaj hawa ne, paigaam ye laakar diya…
Ki CBS ne unko aakhir 'ALVIDA' hai kar diya.
Ro rahe hain fachche aaj…aansoo khushi ke hi honge…
Main soch raha hoon yeh hua bhi tab…Jab Ghalib CBS se nikal liya.

Koi chaahe kuchh bhi keh le…Hans le jee bhar ke ya ro le
Main daave se keh sakta hoon…
Humko bhale kabhi na samajh paaye hon wo par…
Main aaj bhi unki izzat karta hoon.

To Sir With Love…
KP

How to sell insurance

You got to see this ad. A bumbling cell-mate makes an unfortunate discovery in a prison cell. The hardest I laughed in years! And to top it all, it is from an Insurance company.

Have a look here.

Surprising science

WHAT makes a scientific paper "surprising" or "unexpected"? Michal Jasienski believes the rapid increase in the frequency of these words in papers' titles is simply a bid by the authors to stand out amid the deluge of publications.

Every minute, on average, two papers are added to the Science Citation Index. When Jasienski, a statistician at National-Louis University in Nowy Sacz, Poland, searched the index he found just 48 occurrences of "surprising" and "unexpected" in titles between 1900 and 1955, but 1660 between 2001 and 2005. The average annual increase in the figure is 10 per cent. At this rate, everything will be surprising before too long.

If grabbing attention is the goal, it is not working. Jasienski took a sample of 100 "surprising" papers and found that on average they were cited by other researchers no more often than 100 matched papers from the same journals. As he notes, this finding may merit a paper with "surprising" in its title.

Chemists appear to be startled more often than other researchers. Jasienski suggests this is a consequence of employing automated techniques that pick out new potential drugs or superconductors, for example, from large collections of randomly synthesised substances. "When theory sleeps and unsupervised playing with chemistry sets is allowed," he concludes, "serendipity rules and research abounds in 'unexpected' outcomes. Chemistry closes a circle and meets her older sister, alchemy."

Source: New Scientist

Of straight lines and squares

Try solving this geometry proof. Achha Hai!

An Awakening In Bihar

An interesting one from Businessworld

An Awakening In Bihar
How one rural school helps prepare poor youths for the Indian Institutes of Technology

Every April, some 230,000 Indian youths sharpen their pencils and sit for the intensely competitive entrance exam to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) -- the seven prestigious schools that train India's top-notch engineers and entrepreneurs. After the grueling six-hour test, only 5,000 students are offered a place in the IITs. Most come from middle-class backgrounds and prepare for the exams through private coaching. But in the past few years, a small group of desperately poor, talented students have made it into the IITs, thanks to the Ramanujan School of Mathematics.

The school, named after a famous Indian mathematician, is even more intense than the IITs themselves. Located in Patna, the capital of Bihar, one of India's least developed states, the Ramanujan School trains just 30 students a year to take the IIT exam. Anand Kumar, 33, a local mathematician, and Abhayanand, 52, Patna's deputy director general of police and a lover of physics, founded the school in 2003 to help promising locals get ahead in the caste-based society.

They scoured Bihar's least privileged communities for 30 bright students to coach for the exam, providing free lessons and housing. They call their group the Super 30. "Intelligence is not birth-specific," says Abhayanand. In the first year, 16 of the group made it into the IITs. The next year, 22 made it. "This year," Kumar says confidently, "all 30 will get into the IITs."

Santosh Kumar, 19 (no relation to Anand Kumar), is one of this year's Super 30, and his story is typical of his classmates. He's from Dumari, a village in the Bihata district, about 22 miles from Patna. Nearly all the village's 3,000 residents scratch out meager livings as farmers. Santosh's sister and three brothers studied up to 10th grade but then returned to the fields. "Studying further required money, so that was that," he says.

VILLAGE HERO
Santosh wanted more. His school had no roof, no doors, and no teachers half the time, but he borrowed books and tutored two young students for 70 cents a month. He also sold vegetables the family cultivated in a nearby market town. "I didn't even know which subjects I was good at, and I'd certainly never heard of IIT. No one had," he says. Then an eighth-grade teacher noticed his mathematical talent and encouraged him to study further.

Santosh saw that "education was the only way out of poverty," he says. At first, he planned to study so he could become an officer in the Indian civil service. After high school, he enrolled in the Patna College of Commerce, and then he heard about the IITs and the Super 30. "I went straightaway to Anand Kumar and told him: 'I dream of IIT, but I have no money.' He gave me his test, and I came second in the class. [He] let me into his Super 30 -- free," Santosh recalls.

For seven months, Santosh studied every morning for four hours, then sat down for a three-hour test in math, physics, and chemistry, and after a break studied three more hours. From six to nine in the evening, he attended a class in the same subjects and prepared for the next day's test until 2 a.m. His work paid off last spring, when he won a coveted seat at the IIT in Kharagpur, near Calcutta. (He ranked 3,537 out of the 5,000 students chosen.) Santosh now aims to earn a doctorate in chemistry and become an inventor. His hero is Abdul Kalam, India's current President and father of the nation's missile program. Just as important, Santosh is on track to be the first person from Dumari to graduate from university, making him a hero in the eyes of his village.

By Manjeet Kripalani

Exception Probat Regulam

People going crazy over what proves what right or wrong. Does the exception prove the rule? Does the rule prove the exception? Do both prove each other? Head here for a no-holds-barred, all flat-out punches look at "Exception Probat Regulam"!

Why Thank You Dear!

Bob was sitting at the table one morning, reading the paper after breakfast.
He came across an article about a beautiful actress who was about to marry a football player known for his lack of IQ.
He turned to his wife and said, "I'll never understand why the biggest jerks get the most attractive wives."
She replied, "Why, thank you, Dear!"

Matter and Anti-Matter

Here are two lists that will interest anyone. With a list of techies who don't matter and a list of business people who do matter it sure makes for interesting reading!

Before You Know It

Before You Know It, is a website that promises to teach you a langugae, before -you guessed it- you know it!

I am planning to learn Latin so that I can murder quotations on my own more freely, instead of depending on others!

e.g. "Vox Populi Vox Dei" becomes "Vox Matri Vox Dei" or for the no-longer-bachelor creed, "Vox Uxori Vox Dei"!

"Cogito Ergo Sum" becomes "Cogito Ergo Confuso" or better still, "Cogita Cogito Ergo Cogito Sum"!

Ah! The Joys of learning Latin - let me explore them

Romantic Ist Lines but Deadly IInd Ones

A local newspaper ran a competition asking for a rhyme with the most romantic first line, but the least romantic second line. Here are some of the entries they received.

I thought that I could love no other,
Until, that is, I met your brother.

Roses are red, violets are blue,
sugar is sweet, and so are you.
But the roses are wilting, the violets are dead,
the sugar bowl's empty and so is your head.

Oh loving beauty you float with grace,
If only you could hide your face.

Kind, intelligent, loving and hot,
This describes everything you are not.

I want to feel your sweet embrace,
But don't take that paper bag off of your face.

I love your smile, your face, and your eyes,
Damn, I'm good at telling lies!

My darling, my lover, my beautiful wife,
Marrying you screwed up my life.

I see your face when I am dreaming,
That's why I always wake up screaming.

My love, you take my breath away,
What have you stepped in to smell this way.

My feelings for you no words can tell,
Except for maybe "go to hell".