My Latest !

Finally bought that fountain pen I have been looking for....



See more details of the pen here (You have to rollover the last option - Black/Nickel). Cost me a pretty packet (INR 1850), but its worth it !!!

Was thinking of buying a good fountain pen for some time. Options were to buy a very basic one, which can be used on a daily basis. This would be, of course, a run-up to the a really nice and expensive one...maybe a Mont Blanc or something.

Personally, I'd prefer a Waterman or something like that, but I guess a Sheaffer is better than a Parker ! Interestingly, it seems all the good pens in Shoppers Stop have been imported by William Penn, the same shop in Koramangala, Blr, where I bought my first Sheaffer (a stainless steel body roller-ball one). This one shop seems to be doing great, huh !

Anyway, here's to my Sheaffer, and looking forward to the next one in my collection. Maybe a nice Mont Blanc or a Waterman, perhaps ?!


:-)

ACTUAL QUOTES FROM EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE EVALUATION

One of those email fwds I found in my mailbox ....liked it enough to keep it, and here it is:

SINCE MY LAST REPORT, HE HAS REACHED ROCK BOTTOM AND HAS STARTED TO DIG.

HIS MEN WOULD FOLLOW HIM ANYWHERE, BUT ONLY OUT OF MORBID CURIOSITY.

I WOULD NOT ALLOW THIS EMPLOYEE TO BREED.

THIS EMPLOYEE IS NOT REALLY SO MUCH OF A HAS-BEEN, BUT MORE OF A DEFINITE WON'T BE.

WORKS WELL WHEN UNDER CONSTANT SUPERVISION AND CORNERED LIKE A RAT IN A TRAP.

WHEN SHE OPENS HER MOUTH, IT SEEMS THAT IT IS ONLY TO CHANGE WHICHEVER FOOT WAS PREVIOUSLY IN THERE.

THIS YOUNG LADY HAS DELUSIONS OF ADEQUACY SHE SETS LOW PERSONAL STANDARDS AND THEN CONSTANTLY FAILS TO ACHIEVE THEM.

THIS EMPLOYEE SHOULD GO FAR-AND THE SOONER HE STARTS, THE BETTER THIS EMPLOYEE IS DEPRIVING A VILLAGE SOMEWHERE OF AN IDIOT

NOT THE SHARPEST KNIFE IN THE DRAWER

GOT INTO THE GENE POOL WHILE THE LIFEGUARD WASN'T LOOKING

A ROOM TEMPERATURE I.Q.

GOT A FULL 6-PACK, BUT LACKS THE PLASTIC THINGY TO HOLD IT ALL TOGETHER

A GROSS IGNORAMUS--144 TIMES WORSE THAN AN ORDINARY IGNORAMUS

A PHOTOGRAPHIC MEMORY BUT WITH THE LENS COVER GLUED ON.

A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR NATURAL SELECTION

ONE-CELLED ORGANISMS OUT SCORE HIM ON I.Q. TEST

FELL OUT OF THE FAMILY TREE

GATES ARE DOWN, THE LIGHTS ARE FLASHING, BUT THE TRAIN ISN'T COMING.

HAS TWO BRAINS; ONE IS LOST AND THE OTHER IS OUT LOOKING FOR IT.

HE'S SO DENSE, LIGHT BENDS AROUND HIM

IF YOU WERE TO GIVE HIM A PENNY FOR HIS THOUGHTS, YOU'D GET CHANGE

IF YOU STAND CLOSE ENOUGH TO HIM, YOU CAN HEAR THE OCEAN

IT'S HARD TO BELIEVE THAT HE BEAT OUT 1,000,000 OTHER SPERM

SOME DRINK FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF KNOWLEDGE-HE ONLY GARGLED

TAKES HIM 4 HOURS TO WATCH 60 MINUTES

WHEEL IS TURNING, BUT THE HAMSTER IS DEAD

Great Site for Books !

Stumbled on this terrific site for displaying my book collection called Shelfari. Salient features are:

- I can choose my books and display them on my shelf
- This can be seen by the world
- I can categorise them by tags; my tags include literary fiction, silicon valley stories, business biography, indian fiction, etc.
- There's also a section for wish list, top 10 and reading.

Check out my shelf here.
Am pretty impressed by it, and have added some 65 books on it so far. It seems that this is a pretty new site (launched end of last yr), and amazon has been part of the funding. Thats the reason its a bit similar to its wish list, and all that (thats a bit dissapointing, actually).

The business model is that whenever you buy a book thru this site, a part of the proceeds goes to shelfari.

Have been inviting lotsa ppl on this. They also have a widget to display the bookshelf....

What have I been doing with Google Reader ?

...Tripping out big time !!!

So check out that have I been doing with Google Reader:

- Discovered the updated version and found it pretty useful.
- Added all the blogs I had saved in delicious to it
- Categorised them
- Imported Sumeet's OPML file *that wasnt a great idea...i now have to delete a hell lot of useless stuff*

I now follow a 2 step model to add blogs to my ecosystem -
1. Subscribe it to Google Reader and put it in the right folder
2. Add it to my delicious by using the Firefox plug in.

Been reading them on my iPaQ and firefox.

Lessons: Dont add too many feeds...you can only read so much !

More on it later.

Back from the slumber !

Back again. Partly to try my patience once again, and partly to try out the picassa code that lets you see pics of my latest vacation !

Pics from our Queensland Vacation!

Check out pics from our last vacation to Queensland. Reason for the delay in posting them is my frustration in finding the right pic-sharing site (will gripe abt it later)

Coming soon in a post near you...all abt our queensland vacation!

Meanwhile....enjoy the pics !

Queensland Vacation Pics

Aug 14, 2006 - 159 Photos

10 Best presentations

Found this on my comp when I returned from work...apparently the wifey got the link from somewhere. This is on the blog of a site called www.knowhr.com (can be found here) Anyway, it is an interesting list. Consists of links to google video's mostly. So here goes:

Top 10 Best Presentations Ever

Sarah and I were talking about great presentations we’d seen or heard about and she came up with an idea for a Top 10 list. Here’s our take on the Top 10 Best Presentations Ever (in no particular order…and if you have others to add, we’d love to hear about them):

Steve Jobs introduces the Macintosh in 1984. Back then, Steve dressed like Tucker Carlson circa 2006, but black tee shirts and jeans or double-breasted jacket and bow tie, this Macintosh unveiling rocked the house. Steve has perfected the sense of theater, and none is better than this one. Check out how he pulls the 3.5-inch floppy from his jacket pocket. Flair, baby.

Dick Hardt’s Identity 2.0 presentation at OSCON 2005. Hardt’s preparation and energy sets the standard for presentation quality. He uses hundreds of slides in this 20-minute, high buzz work. Heck, I didn’t even care about virtual identity and still watched this one five or six times. It has a chance of becoming my presentation Dirty Dancing (which I’ve seen 100 times), where “nobody puts baby in the corner.”

Guy Kawasaki’s Art of the Start speech at TiECon 2006. In the 40-minute presentation (PDF of slides here), Kawasaki talks about innovation and business evangelism. When he talks about “Make Mantra” it’s well worth listening to. The beauty of his speech is that he uses a Top 10 approach and is unafraid to speak plainly and with great humor (which is sadly lost in public speaking).

Dr. Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech in 1963. Who can argue that Dr. King’s speech in Washington on August 28, 1963 was anything but brilliant and changed the trajectory of America? But the rheotrical beauty of this speech is also unparalleled. At a time when our language has been reduced to the common, it’s essential to look upon the preparation and thought that Dr. King used for this monumetal speech.

Lawrence Lessig’s Free Culture talk at the 2002 Open Source Conference. The master of the simple slides shows us how it’s done. And since, as he says, this is his 100th time for this talk, he has this bad boy down solid. Even though this talk is from 2002, his slide presentation style is still as fresh today as Axe Body Spray.

Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink presentation at SXSW 2005. I’ve seen Gladwell talk a couple of times in person, and he’s brilliant. He talks fast and he makes points by telling stories. He doesn’t lecture, he paints a picture. All this from one of the foremost thinkers of our age. Gladwell makes the points, “We can do more with less. And there are real dangers in giving people too much information.” Hey, that reminds me, Where are his slides? Oh, he’s presenting without slides. How about that?

Tom Peters presents A Ham Sandwich in 1990. Okay, this isn’t a Peters presentation, but the guy has so much passion that he can make a ham sandwich sound compelling. I saw him a few times in the late 80s during the height of the Thriving on Chaos days, and that was some rallying cry. In the link here, Peters outlines what makes a great presentation. No one can leave a Tom Peters presentation saying they weren’t energized and entertained.

Seth Godin talks about Marketing at Google in 2006. “Technology doesn’t win, but it sure gives you a chance at marketing.” Godin knows the story, lived it, and tells it. He also uses slides to his advantage to persuade his audience that he’s right. Check out the slide he calls “No one cares about you.” Is there anything wrong with getting people to laugh and think at the same time?

Andy Kaufman sings along to Mighty Mouse on SNL in 1975. Mies van der Rohe would have been proud, because Kaufman showed the essence of “less is more” in this Saturday Night Live skit. I’m not suggesting that your presentations should be filled renditions of superhero songs, but negative space is important, and this presentation was both ahead of its time and pointed in its simplicity.

Rupert Everett sings I Say a Little Prayer for You in MBFW in 1997. Okay, this is just one of our favorites and isn’t exactly a “presentation.” In fact, it’s from a movie - My Best Friend’s Wedding. But isn’t a lot of what we do a “presentation” designed to persuade people to believe our story? The beauty of this one is the lead-in and then the music. Oh, the power of music. And if you haven’t seen this movie, the last scene is just fantastic.