Senator Questions Rise In US Texting Prices

Text messaging is a 100 billion dollar industry in the U.S. That's bigger than all the movies, all the music, and all the video games in the entire world put together. The current cost of a single 140 byte text message is 40 cents (which is obfuscated by the fact that the sender AND the receiver are both paying 20 cents each). I can get a letter hand delivered to any doorstep in the U.S. for about the same price. The cost of a text message to the carrier is virtually ZERO. Yet somehow, they are saying that 40 cents is a fair price.

Senator Questions Rise In US Texting Prices

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Money is a unit of measurement

Money is a unit of measurement. It offers a level of abstraction, just like everything else. I don’t see why you need abstract concepts like mithya and maya to explain an abstract concept. Using unknown Indic terms would only lead to more confusion.

Consider this, a village is producing 2 objects, eggs and apples. All you need to know is the exchange. How many apples will I get for an egg and vice versa. Suppose the village produces 5 objects, we now have to maintain a exchange table of 5c2 = 5 * 4 /2 = 10, make it 10, 10 * 9 /2 = 45, n objects results in nc2. I hope you are beginning to see the problem.

This is the exact same problem encountered when you try to relatively measure weight, length, etc. It becomes unwieldy and inefficient. The problems in these areas are solved by standardizing on weight and length and everything else is compared to this standard. If you are considering money as mithya/maya, then length and weight are as well.

In the good (??) old days, Gold was the standard for measuring value and everything was based on that. Since carrying Gold around is somewhat inefficient and cumbersome, paper money came into beign. Any paper money created was backed up by Gold. It carried some value. Now, we have the fractional reserve system and federal banks to screw up with this unit of measurement. If its not standardized (pegged to gold), we have a unit of measurement which is variable. Consider what would happen if we have a unit of length that varies over time. The Govt and Central Bank in addition to stealing large amount of money in the form of taxes, also has a license to print money which is not backed up by production. This creates a stealth tax (inflation or something), which devalues money over a period of time.

The tyranny of Govt doesn’t end there. Govt also screws up the economy by distorting the information. Prices convey information. It is an approximation of how much one values stuff produced. This information disseminates through a complex latticework, known as the market and every person involved in the economy takes decisions, whether to produce or not to (demand and supply), based on this information. If the information is correct, people take good decisions, eg, I would see that people value porn dvds more than apples and would shift my resources in that direction. These information channels optimize resource allocation, which are always fixed. However, Govt interferes with the information channels in hundreds of ways (subsidies, etc), thereby distorting the information that people need. This leads to a lot of people taking bad decisions. Cumulatively, a lot of people taking bad decisions (coz of the distorted information) over a long period of time, is not good, to say the least.

37000 feet and cruising: So I am sick + some learnings and thoughts

Ensure that the entire process is under your control. This is very important. There will be temptations to do that deal with a large company who will get their entire sales force to sell your product. It will be lucrative to get integrated with this large pan-indian bank so that your cash management becomes a trivial problem. Trust me, this will not work. The fact that you want to do any deal with an external party means that you feel that the problem is a difficult one for you to tackle. Wisdom has taught us that the only reason the external party agrees to do the deal is they don't realize how difficult the problem is. In the initial days, it's important for every company to have full ownership and a fool-proof plan they can implement to solve the difficult problems they come across.


Never hire through recruiters. We have found that the best way to hire is through referrals and through job portals. Recruiters are just lousy. If your HR person is using a recruiter or wants to use one, it just means they don't want to put in the effort to do the job themselves. Of course the best hires are people who have worked with other team members in the past.

37000 feet and cruising: So I am sick + some learnings and thoughts

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Ease norms for internet calls, Trai tells govt

Prices of domestic long-distance calls are expected to halve to around 50 paise a minute and those for international calls fall by a fifth if the recommendations of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) to permit internet service providers (ISPs) to offer unrestricted internet telephony are cleared by the government.

Allowing ISPs to extend their internet telephony operations will effectively create an alternative domestic telephone network and has been criticised by mobile service providers as being unfair.

Two years ago, the government permitted telecom licensees to offer unrestricted internet telephony as part of their licence conditions. None of the mobile operators has done so yet, principally because the service would drive down prices and impact average revenue per user, which is already among the lowest in the world.

ISPs are currently allowed to offer Net calls but subject to certain restrictions such as between two personal computers, one in India and the other anywhere in the world; between a subscriber with a voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone in India and a subscriber with a similar device in any country; and also between a PC in India and a fixed or mobile number in another country.

If the new policy is accepted, consumers will be able to call through the Net directly to fixed line and mobile numbers across the country and vice-versa. They can do so either through the PC or through a VOIP phone or from a landline fitted with an additional device.

Ease norms for internet calls, Trai tells govt

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Canon officially drops 50D, new point-and-shoots

To be honest, they’re extremely straightforward, even more so than normal point-and-shoots, so I’ll just give you the basics. They all feature optical image stabilization (nice) and the usual shooting modes, face detection, and so on.

Let’s go in alphabetical order, like we found these filed at a liberry. Cameras not shown at actual size.


A1000 and A2000 ($200 and $250, respectively)

Both the A1000 and A2000 have 10 megapixels and the same extra features. Difference is the A2000 has 6x zoom instead of 4x, looks better, and has a 3″ LCD instead of a 2.5″.

CrunchGear » Archive » Canon officially drops 50D, new point-and-shoots

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Top Ten Reasons the Nintendo Wii is NOT the Greatest

If you have followed my writing over the past few years, you wouldn’t be surprised to find out that I’m not the biggest Nintendo Wii fan on the planet. When I hear people talking about how it’s the greatest console ever, I just find it extremely difficult to understand how they could possibly think this. Nintendo fanboys sometimes remind me of women with battered person syndrome. The Wii is basically like a busted crack head who beats his wife (the Nintendo Wii fanboy) yet she still loves him for some reason. It simply does not make the least bit of sense. Don’t take my post too personal. I still enjoy certain aspects of the Wii. I just find that it’s a highly flawed system that receives far more kudos than it should have.

Top Ten Reasons the Nintendo Wii is NOT the Greatest : Kezins.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Netbooks quickbooks

Real-world people record their real-world transactions: manufacturing, physical movement of goods, and the system records the facts in Accounting. NetBooks is an accounting system at it’s heart, but one without the need to deal with accounting screens. This should not come as a surprise, given Founder Ridgley Evers’s own background: he was co-founder at QuickBooks, the de facto standard for small businesses.


The User Interface is nothing to call home about. You certainly won’t find the lively charts and dashboards seen at Salesforce.com, NetSuite, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM …etc.  But having a simplistic UI is one thing, making it outright boring is another, and hard to use is a capital crime.  In NetBooks you basically navigate through small text lists, then double -click on an item to drill down to more details, wait long (the system, at least the trial one feels very slow) for several overlapping screens to pop up. You have to close or move around some of these pop-ups to see what’s underneath.  And whoever came up with the idea of clicking on those tiny arrows should be banned from web design for life. 

quickbooks| Zoli’s Blog

Blogged with the Flock Browser

McKnight Principles

As our business grows, it becomes increasingly necessary to delegate responsibility and to encourage men and women to exercise their initiative. This requires considerable tolerance. Those men and women, to whom we delegate authority and responsibility, if they are good people, are going to want to do their jobs in their own way.

Mistakes will be made. But if a person is essentially right, the mistakes he or she makes are not as serious in the long run as the mistakes management will make if it undertakes to tell those in authority exactly how they must do their jobs.

Management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. And it's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow. - William L. McKnight, 3M

McKnight Principles

A Century of Innovation

A Century of Innovation is a celebration of the values and innovative thinking that makes 3M unique. Perseverance, ingenuity and creativity have made 3M's first 100 years a century of success.

For years, people around the world have looked to 3M for products and ideas that solve problems and make their lives easier and better. Our achievements are the foundation of a proud past and the bright future of many innovations to come.

We have a history of investing in the communities in which we operate by providing jobs for local residents and supporting education, the environment, and social and economic development. 3M also is recognized as a leader in environmental protection and a pioneer in pollution prevention.

Much of 3M's rich culture comes from the principles that William L. McKnight, former President and Chairman of the Board, set forth. McKnight believed "management that is destructively critical when mistakes are made kills initiative. It's essential that we have many people with initiative if we are to continue to grow." It is this growth that continues to make 3M a leader in the 21st century.

The 3M Story

Read about the first 100 years of 3M, a global, diversified technology company committed to providing practical and ingenious solutions to help customers succeed.

A Century of Innovation The 3M Story (pdf, 6.82 MB)

The History of Programming Languages

We first saw the "History of Programming Languages" diagram, created by Éric Lévénez, while visiting our French office. We were so taken with the level of detail and the visual impact of viewing 50 years of programming history that we wanted to come up with a way to share it more widely.


O'Reilly -- The History of Programming Languages

Blogged with the Flock Browser

letscall.me - Anonymous phone number - accept calls anonymously

How it works

• Pick your own url, such as letscall.me/johndoe
• Instead of giving out your phone number, share your letscall.me page
• People who want to call you input their phone number on your letscall.me page, and then we will call them and connect them with you.
• Your phone will ring with the other person's Caller ID - since the other person needs to be receive the call first, they cannot fake their number
• Talk with the other person as often and as long as you want
• If you want to block the person from calling you, just tell us their number
• 
  

Anonymous phone number - accept calls anonymously

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Open for Business: Open Courseware Collections for Web Entrepreneurs - Biz.Edu

If you are considering going into business for yourself and using the Internet as your vehicle, then you will want to ensure you have the best background possible to make your venture a success. With open courseware readily available, there is no reason why you can’t provide the knowledge for yourself that many business students gain from some of the top universities in the world. The following open courseware selections will give you the edge when it comes to knowing about business.

Open for Business: 100+ Open Courseware Collections for Web Entrepreneurs - Biz.Edu

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Houseplans.com

Search 28,773 house plans to find your perfect home


The largest online collection of house plans, making quality home design affordable. Search and explore our house plans. Save favorites. Customize any plan. Budget your home building project with our instant Cost-to-Build Report.

Houseplans.com, The best house plans, home plans and floor plans collections to buy at the best prices

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Sugata Mitra: Can kids teach themselves?

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/sugata_mitra_shows_how_kids_teach_themselves.html

Speaking at LIFT 2007, Sugata Mitra talks about his Hole in the Wall project. Young kids in this project figured out how to use a PC on their own -- and then taught other kids. He asks, what else can children teach themselves?

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.

In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."

Punished By Rewards

There is a time to admire the grace and persuasive power of an influential idea, and there is a time to fear its hold over us. The time to worry is when the idea is so widely shared that we no longer even notice it, when it is so deeply rooted that it feels to us like plain common sense. At the point when objections are not answered anymore because they are no longer even raised, we are not in control: we do not have the idea, it has us.

This book is about an idea that has attained just such a status in our society. The idea is that the best way to get something done is to provide a reward to people when they act the way we want them to. Scholars have debated the meaning and traced the development of the intellectual traditio known as behaviourism. What interests me, though, is the popular (or pop) incarnation of this doctrine, the version that lives in our collective consciousness and affects what we do every day. - Alfie Kohn

BBC NEWS | Technology | Poor earning virtual gaming gold

Nearly 500,000 people in developing nations earn a wage making virtual goods in online games to sell to players, a study has found.

Research by Manchester University shows that the practice, known as gold-farming, is growing rapidly.

The industry, about 80% based in China, employs about 400,000 people who earn £77 per month on average.

Big industry

Professor Richard Heeks, head of the development informatics group at Manchester who wrote the report, said gold farming had become a significant economic sector in many developing nations.

"I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry," said Professor Richard Heeks from the University of Manchester who wrote the report.

"In a way that is still true. It's just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands."

In many online games virtual cash remains rare and many people turn to suppliers such as gold farmers to get money to outfit avatars with better gear, weapons or a mount.

Some gold-farming operations offer other services such as "power levelling" in which they assume control of a player's character and turn it into a high-powered hero far faster than the original owner could manage themselves.

Prof Heeks said very accurate figures for the size of the gold farming sector were hard to come by but his work suggested that in 2008 it employs 400,000 people who earn an average of $145 (£77) per month creating a global market worth about $500m.

BBC NEWS | Technology | Poor earning virtual gaming gold

Blogged with the Flock Browser

2008 Is the Coldest Year of the 21st Century

Thank you for this post. I am no scientist, but I am an undergrad in a dual major in Engineering/Science (mathematics), there are certain things that really trouble me about contemporary climate science. For one, there appears to be an over reliance on climate models based on broad sweeping assumptions, and an extreme exaggeration of the capacity of any given model to produce accurate results. Increasingly, the GW science seems to be violating Poppers fundamental philosophy of scientific hypothesis: The only theory worth considering is that which can be disproven. Or rather, science is not about proving as such, it is about disproving. I want to see the falsifiability of climate change theory thoroughly discussed, but it never is, nobody can challenge the models, nobody is allowed to question the methods, nobody is allowed to offer alternative to the mainstream narrative. Its a dangerous place for science to be. More and more I see GW predictions failing the falsifiability test: hot year? Earth is warming, cold year? Earth is unstable due to warming, flood: GW, everything, everything under the sun is being attributed to GW.

The 'consensus' worries me also, moreso in fact. There is rarely consensus in science, especially when dealing with fundamentally complex, non-linear dynamical systems which are proven to be inherently chaotic. Even when a theory is sound and mature, the most important consideration is that you are making predictions by using a model, an inherently and unavoidably flawed model. It is always, always important to cite assumptions and errors when making predictions with any model. But if you question the validity of current climate modelling, you are branded a heretic, a denier, and the worst of all: a skeptic. As if being a skeptic in science is suddenly the wrong thing to do? What happened?

All scientists are skeptics, a scientist without skepticism is no scientist, he is a fool. Worse still believing that computer models are completely trustworthy is like believing your lego starship enterprise will fly you to the moon.

I am not a denier, but I am certainly skeptical. I am certainly open to hypotheses, theories, models and all manner of explanations for given data sets, observations etc. But I am deeply troubled by the way discussion and debate about something as highly chaotic and poorly understood as the climate is shut down so vigorously these days. Worse still, the politicians and economists are on board. I can't help but be just a tad aware that politicians will leap on any populist position and economists are always hungry for new derivatives markets.

2008 Is the Coldest Year of the 21st Century

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Disinformation - Slashdot | Anti-Net Neutrality Astroturfer Exposed

"Ever wonder about all those groups claiming Google had a 'search monopoly' (as if there are no other search engines), or worse, coming out against Net Neutrality? CNet has a story about a shady DC lobbying group called LawMedia Group, being paid by Microsoft and Comcast, that is behind many of these attacks. That said, it's a mystery why they weren't able to pay more authoritative groups than the American Corn Growers Association or the League of Rural Voters to weigh in on technical matters. As a computer geek from corn country, I wouldn't solicit their opinion on tractor repair, let alone Internet policy."



It has long been understood that disinformation is a powerful weapon. That's why the US Army has Pysop. [wikipedia.org] Yes, propaganda that is disguised as a grassroots movement or the work of independent experts is disinformation, not advertising. Part of taking in information (like a product review or political statement) is accounting for the source of that information, ie you will consider the words of someone you respect more than words of someone you regard as a fool. So misrepresenting the source of information is a form of disinformation, and disinformation is weapon, weapons are used to control and destroy. Why are corporations allowed to control and destroy things like legislative process and public political awareness? Sure it's subtle damage, but over time it has done much harm to our society.

Slashdot | Anti-Net Neutrality Astroturfer Exposed


Also see Ron Suskind - Way of the World - he talks about how WMD letter is created by US Govt.

Also see http://idlinginc.blogspot.com/2008/04/behind-tv-analysts-pentagons-hidden.html

Surprising Things That Affect Memory

By regularly gorging on the white bread that's complimentary at restaurants, you're spiking your insulin. You may also be causing the insulin-degrading enzyme that exists in the brain to work overtime removing insulin, rather than getting rid of beta-amyloid proteins, the toxic protein that produces Alzheimer's disease. Carbohydrates are to the brain what cigarettes are to the lungs, Fortanasce says.

Research published in the latest issue of the journal Neurology also shows that eating fish may help prevent memory loss and stroke in healthy, older adults. The study looked at the brain scans of more than 2,300 people age 65 and older. It found that those who ate broiled or baked tuna and other fish high in omega-3 fatty acids (salmon, mackerel, anchovies) three or more times per week had a nearly 26% lower risk that the silent brain lesions would be linked to dementia and stroke.

The wrong dietary choices can have a significantly adverse impact. Consider a study out of Loughborough and Oxford Universities last month, funded by the Alzheimer's Research Trust, concerning the high consumption of soy foods, such as tofu.

Of 700 elderly Indonesians, those who ate tofu at least once a day had an increased risk of dementia or memory loss, particularly if they were over age 65. Researchers believe the link might be due to soy products' phytoestrogens, which may offer some neural benefits to the middle-aged and young but could harm those over 65.

Surprising Things That Affect Memory - Forbes.com

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Performance Reviews

These are actual quotes taken from job performance reviews

1. I would not allow this employee to breed.
2. This associate is really not so much of a has-been, but more definitely a won't be.
3. Works well when under constant supervision and cornered like a rat in a trap.
4. When she opens her mouth, it seems it is only to change whichever foot was previously there.
5. He would be out of his depth in a parking lot puddle.
6. This young lady has delusions of adequacy.
7. He sets low personal standards and then consistently fails to achieve them.
8. This employee is depriving a village somewhere of an idiot.
9. This employee should go far and the sooner he starts, the better.
10. Not the sharpest knife in the drawer.
11. Got into the gene pool when the lifeguard wasn't watching.
12. A room temperature IQ.
13. Got a full 6-pack, but lacks the plastic thingy to hold it together.
14. A gross ignoramus - 144 times worse than an ordinary ignoramus.
15. A photographic memory but with the lens cover glued on.
16. A prime candidate for natural deselection.
17. Bright as Alaska in December.
18. One-celled organisms outscore him in IQ tests.
19. Donated his brain to science before he was done using it.
20. Fell out of the family tree.
21. Gates are down, lights are flashing, but the train isn't coming.
22. Has two brains: one is lost; the other is out looking for it.
23. He's so dense, light bends around him.
24. If brains were taxed, she'd get a refund.
25. If he were any more stupid, he'd have to be watered twice a week.
26. If you give him a penny for his thoughts, you'll get change.
27. If you stand close enough to him, you can hear the ocean.
28. It's hard to believe he beat out 1,000,000 other sperm.
29. One neuron short of a synapse.
30. Some drink from the fountain of knowledge, he only gargled.
31. Takes him an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.
32. Wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
33. Since my last report, this employee has reached rock bottom and has started to dig.
34. His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity.

The Ultimate Guide to Using Open Courseware: 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning