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Words. Wisdom. Winners.
The Perfect Interview Test
Jonathan Littman and Marc Hershon, authors of I Hate People have come up with one of those unorthodox Interview Tests that could give you insights (non-technical though) into the personality of the individual.
“Observe how the candidate crosses the street”
And honestly, my experience so far with hiring, is that Attitude is all that matters! Skills can be acquired, but attitude is a “if-and-only-if” condition!
I am a wader…who are you?
20 Things You Learn from 2012 – The Movie
Write a book, even if it sucks. Because when the world ends, you may be lucky enough to have a copy of it saved by one of the survivors and be forever immortalized
So I watched the movie…and honestly…quite liked it! Cmon…what were you guys expecting? Oscar Movie of the Year! it was meant to be this crappy…but with great visual appeal. And it delivered on it…!
However, as is with every movie, no matter how crappy…there are always learnings (and hidden philosophies!).
Here is my book on…
20 Things You Learn from 2012 – The Movie
- With a wave as high as Mt. Everest some 200 feet away from you…cellphone signals are still strong enough to call your friend in the US and tell him you are dying!
- Blacks will eventually save the world!
- It will friggin take much more than a billion people in size, for India to have one of its citizen up on that ship
- After the world ends…all that will remain will be “Made in China”
- If you wish to save your ass from the world’s end…get some flying lessons! And no…no need to get a friggin license…a flight or two will suffice!
- One day you will be able to fly only 200 miles to reach US, cause the earth would have moved alongwith you!
- Africa is the only continent that will not drown. So yeah…they could die of AIDS or Malaria…but flood…not happening!
- The 2010 London Summer Olympics will be held in December…!
- If you are a stepdad…you will eventually die and the original father will take over!
- John Cusack is the world record holder for the longest duration underwater without breathing!
- The Russian President´s English is sufficient incase you want to tell him that he is going to die…in English
- The chinese build the worst things on this earth, but will make sure that there are cameras installed all across the ship to cover the remotest of insignificant corners!
- But hey…after all the billions spent…the gates can still get jammed by a tool!
- Animals will be saved more for zoo value (Rhino, Giraffe) rather than real value. So yes…no cows, pigs, sheep on the ship please!
- There will always be a senti 10 minute speech on opening the gates, when they are 11 minutes left for impact!
- Russians will always have a sense of humor, when when they are dying!
- Arabs will speak good english but will insist all paperwork and documents to be in Arabic! And yes…they love their family as much as Indians do…so they will pay for all.
- Your hot mistress will always have an affair with your hot driver!
- No matter how much you have paid for the ticket, the boarding will remind you of Air Deccan. However, there might actually be some people who will never make it to the ship, unlike Air Deccan (almost!)
- And oh! When you know 3 years back that the world will be flooded…always make a ship..! Not a submarine…a ship!
Please add your own!!
Sachin Tendulkar joins Politics
…i hope never…(or for that matter I hope someday!)…
But this is what Mr. Thackeray (no, the old almost dead one…not the young ‘always orgasming’ one!) believes Sachin has done by commenting that “Mumbai is part of India”
“There was no need for him to take a cheeky single by making such remarks,” Sena mouthpiece ‘Saamna’ quoted Thackeray as saying.
and hey…friggin entire India comes together…and this time not to simply light candles on India Gate (with all due respect…but really…candles…solidarity…??)…but barging full-on to face the Thackerays! Ofcourse they all know that no one will ever vandalise their house for doing so…since Tendulkar is god in India…and anyone even coming remotely close to branding him otherwise will only draw flak! Least…the political party will loose all voters..!
I dont get it…politics! What was the old man thinking…?? He knew this would become a national “breaking news”. And its not even something that will draw appreciation from some quarters of the society. Anyone who says anything against Sachin is bound to be either drugged, or made to confess so by Delhi Police…(or both..!). So whats the point…!
But maybe he has one…
On the other side…ofcourse a lot of people have found their moment of fame by coming up with their two pence on what they think about Sachin’s statement! HT covered some of them….one of which was a masterpiece
“Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra, which is part of India. Mumbai is, therefore, an integral part of India”
Thanks Sherlock! Thats exactly what we had in mind when we asked you if you felt Mumbai was a part of India.
Did you pay your taxes?
Then the Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa should thank you!
An RTI reply has revealed that Yeddyurappa has spent a staggering Rs 1.7 crore to renovate his bungalow, Rs 35 lakh of which went into redoing his bedroom.
On one hand, I find it amazing that such level of information can be procured in this country…andthe ones procuring it are people such as you and me – fed up of living in the “chalta hain” scheme of things!
And on the other, I find it unfortunate that this very chief minister will come back to power, if you will, because he will distribute rice at Rs 2 per kg!
——
I travel 38 kms one-way to work! And I am blessed because the road to office is awesome..and it hardly takes me 45 minutes to cover it. However, if a certain 7km stretch of the road (which I avoid…infact everyone except the trucks avoid) was to be repaired…the same distance would reduce to 32kms and under 40 mins.
Yah…its not a lot…6kms or 5mins…but if you cover this over the number of vehicles that travel this route everyday, you will wonder why no one bothers to just repair the road! A few lacs…and god knows how much will be saved in time, effort and money!
I did write to the Department of Roads, Haryana and was told that this road falls under the Highway department. I wrote to them…and never got a response!
And to think of it…I am friggin complaining about my life…when I am aware of several others who spend twice as much time on the road…covering half the distance I travel!
I know everything about you – Google!
Not that we didn’t know it…but its fascinating…and equally scary…to see how much of data has google stored through that one single username password of yours..! Gmail, Orkut, Reader, Search, Youtube, Alerts, GTalk…we dont realize how much of time we spend on Google products everyday and how all of those actions are being stored
Google released its DashBoard feature this week, which helps users with Google accounts to shit in their pants looking at the amount of information that lies with the company.
For starters, I have:
- over 18,000 received emails,
- over 7,000 sent mails and
- over 5,o00 chat conversations
saved in my GMail account!!! Holy friggin shit…!
And oh…in the month of October, i executed more than 10,700 google search queries…ALL of which are stored…!
It is scary…and also jaw-dropping…to realize that a single entity knows so much about possibly every young individual in this world!! EVERYTHING!
Phew!
8% of Internet Users Account for 85% of all Clicks
Am not surprised at this statistic…! Released by Comscore this Wednesday, the “Natural Born Clickers” research has some rather interesting revelations about the Internet and especially the clicks happening all across!
While the statistics are only regarding image ads (and not search ads, which will surely throw up numbers different, maybe drastically different), it still is fascinating to think how the industry today is so centered around clicks and you friggin find out that only 8% of the audience you are catering to, is doing most of the talking! As rightly questioned in the report too…what about the remaining audience, who rarely click, but are still surfing the net and spending a whole lot of time on it.
I realize that there will always be this section which somehow adjusts to the ads around them. They ‘zone off’ the ads! I belong to that category…as long as the ad is advertising for something else but ‘showing’ something else (if you know what I mean!). But there will be a section of the population, and I reckon a good share, that will see the ad but never click…for whatever reason. But the ad has surely had some effect on them…however minuscule in nature! How do you quantify that!
Google ofcourse has a remedy, as is does for a whole lot of things in this world except for premature ejaculation! They recently released the “View Through” conversions on the Google Banner network (not yet for text ads). Basically works through a cookie for a period of 30 days…so if I have seen an ad and then ultimately do make a conversion sometime later within 30 days…its counted as happening because of the ad!
Not 100% perfect….one can guess multiple flaws in this metric…but a start nonetheless.
In the Internet space, unlike offline media, there is so much of stuff happening, fighting for the user attention. And the switching costs for the user are zero, almost always, unless playing Farmville on FB! So I always thought that clicks is a good way of measuring intent! Definitely better than impressions! But then if clicks are also not working (in the sense, you are eliminating a huge chunk of the audience), what would be a good way to measure ad effectiveness? And thereby cost it?
What would it be?
Start A New Life
Our latest creation…please share if you like it…!
Letter to Air India
To whosoever it may concern at AI, (Bad start…because it really will not concern anyone at AI…it never will)
Recall the incident wherein one of your Airhostesses on the Sharjah-Lucknow flight had reportedly leveled molestation charges against two pilots. Today, you have gone ahead and chargesheeted her.
“Komal Singh has been chargesheeted for speaking to the media against company policies. She has also been accused of insubordination, disobeying seniors,” said a senior official working with the airline, wishing anonymity.
A lot of people are crying foul here and accusing you of gender-bias. But I don’t think you…I don’t think you guys even thought that this would amount to gender-bias, because quite frankly thinking that far requires brains. So no, its not gender-bias! I would be writing this letter even if the person levying the charges would have been a guy!
I simply have 2 questions:
1. Imagine that the undergoing case would actually have resulted in the charges being proven true. Would you still have gone ahead with the chargesheet?
2. Imagine that the air-hostess had not jumped up and down infront of the media and simply reported the matter to her seniors. Would you have still taken this charge as seriously?
—-
I have another question, this time for my lawyer friends. Can the public chargesheet Air India and Indian Airlines for running this setup the way it is run. Where money continues to be lost every year, and not because it is offering any ‘social service’ to the nation by operating at subsidized rates, but simply because of the public sector hangover where accountability is not a standard to live up to. A company whose losses are being funded by the population! I think that crime enough for a chargesheet, no?
Which Religion Should You Follow
Hemant Mehta wonderfully creates a flowchart to determine which Religion should one follow! While I wish there didnt exist a need for religion to exist alltogether, the flowchart is nonetheless quite a nice attempt.
Where do you lie?
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7
Unfortunately, it isn’t straightforward if you wish to upgrade to Windows 7, and are currently running on Windows XP (which almost the entire world is!). The biggest difference (from a Windows Vista user currently) being that all your programs will have to be re-installed! Yup…all…! Thats your Office, iTunes, Picasa, GTalk, Skype…everything…!!
Thats quite a pain…and unfortunately no way to get out of it.
However, Windows has been kind enough to come up a step-by-step tutorial to help current XP users migrate to Windows 7. It basically uses the Windows Easy Transfer, which creates a backup of all your files and settings (kind of the File and Settings Transfer Wizard, but this time compatible with Windows 7).
Here is the step-by-step tutorial (Right Click and Save-Link-As)
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7
The web-version of the tutorial can be found here
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