Yahoo Supports OpenId

Yahoo! has announced its support for OpenId. This is a move inline with the focus of Yahoo! on moving from portal to platform.

For those who are not aware what OpenId is, it is an open technology standard for logging into website to access its content. It eliminates the use of multiple username and password across different websites.

So now you can login not only to Yahoo! properties but to a lot more websites(Open Id supported) using your Yahoo! login.

Fight or Flight

I was wondering what could be the worst kind of feeling in an individual's life. There is no worse feeling than losing something which has high stakes for you and people have high expectations on you. It could be personal or professional. Like getting into the most premiere institute and then graduating with a track record which even you are ashamed of. It actually hurts.

It hurts so much because you know how much pain you are going through and there is nothing you can do about it. It hurts because you know how deflated you are and will be. It hurts because you know everyone around you that you care about will bother you with assinine questions and commentary and there is nothing you can or should do about it. The inside of you wants to lash out and try to beat some common sense into them, but you know there is no point.

You know that you are going to have to go through the drill of being calm so that everyone else is calm. Shutting out everything blasting at you when you leave your house or office, recognizing that its just noise that doesn't change all the work everyone around you has put in to get this far. It doesn't change all that they have accomplished.

You know that the difference between winning and losing at this level is a very, very fine line. You will think of every moment that could have changed the outcome over the past.All the what ifs.

Then there comes a point where a smile comes on your face. You think of all the joy and fun you had while trying for that thing. The moments you would never ever trade. The knowledge that has reached a level where the stakes are much higher. You take pride and satisfaction in where you are, knowing that its a foundation.

Then the competitive juices kick back in and you go to work. Looking for that edge. Wishing that the next most competitive and valuable thing is now.

Joy of Next

One prominent thing which separates humans from machines is the ability to experience and predict things. To see is to experience the world as it is, to remember is to experience the world as it was but to imagine is to experience the world as it has never been but it might be. To imagine things which do not exist in the realm of reality is a quality of human brain which is phenomenal and it is this ability which drives us to think about the future. Most of our time is spent anticipating and making future.

This is what separates humans from animals and is responsible for bringing us out of the jungles into houses, journey to space and most of the things which we see around us.The imagination of something which does not exist and might never exist.

Nexting or predicting the immediate future is something which brain does continuosly.When trying to walk on a crowded street we try to estimate the speed of others and walk accordingly.These predictions about our local immediate and personal future happen unconsiously, are ubiquitous and take
place at an unimaginable speed.

Now since we are endowed with such power it makes us believe we can always predict and control our fate. We do things in present which we predict will bring joy in next.When I am studying i am predicting i will be better paid off in the future which will make my life more secure in future. Even if we take example of very small things like going out for dinner i am predicting i will enjoy after having dinner at some XYZ place, when i reach there i will order things which i predict i will like and this goes on and on.

In a way we are always trying to find our Shangri-La and doing things which we think will bring joy in the next. And if I were asked what i did last year I would say preparing for joy of next and what I would be doing this year I would again say preparing for joy of next.

Welcome 2008!

Everything is Miscellaneous

Everything is Miscellaneous is a book by David Weinberger who is also author of The Cluetrain Manifesto. The reviews seems promising, in short the book talks about how we classify things. It addresses some of the current trends on the internet.

According to Weinberger when we organise data in terms of physical placement , we tend to think in Aristotelian terms where objects are members of a categories, and share the same traits as other members of that category. We can organize these categories into trees: a robin is a bird, which is an animal. We can expect the leaves of trees to share the attributes of their branches, and we expect each leaf to fit onto only one, specific branch. But that's not how knowledge works in a digital age. When I bookmark, it's to my benefit to add many tags to it, both because it makes it easier for me to find it again, and because it helps other people find it as well. Weinberger advises us to "put each leaf on as many branches as possible", building a tree that looks more like a hyperlinked pile of leaves.

So when we are looking for a book on Amazon.com we can find it under a number of categories and it can also be found using a lot of metadata like tags etc. This makes the book more searchable.

Here is a brief video which makes the concept more clear.

Being with people who understand you, Priceless

Mastercard has one of the best punch lines and they know how to improvise on it. Just saw this commercial and its lovely.

Wing Reunion Ooty'07

When we were in college we used to make a lot of plans to go on a wing trip. But every time the plan was blown off mainly due to financial constraint. Now we are earning and money is no more a problem, but now most of us don’t have time. However this time nine out of thirteen of our wing mates managed to spare three days for the wing reunion and the place was chosen to be Ooty.

Why Ooty? Not because of its natural beauty, after a lot of research we found that there is not much to see in Ooty which means we will be spending more time in our rooms so in a way we will be having more time for Bulla (Gossip) and Patte (Cards).

So finally nine of us gathered in Bangalore for a three day trip to Ooty starting Sept 29 ’07. Just for the matter of record following people were present
Aayush aka CK from Hyderabad,
Anand aka AVS from Noida,
Arun from Gurgaon,
Gaurav aka gaG from Hyderabad
Jitendra aka Jitu from Pune,
Mayank aka MS from Hyderabad,
Puneet aka bunty from Kanpur
Rajat aka gattu from Hyderabad
Sandeep aka inzaghi from Bangalore

Also for record purpose the brakes of the tempo traveller failed near the 22nd Hairpin turn, while coming down from Ooty. The vehicle was stopped by hitting the rocks on the other side of about 1500m deep valley. Some snaps from the trip

Just before the Start

On the way to Ooty

After the brakes failed

Damaged vehicle

Gattu, Aayush, Me and gaG

gattu me and gaG

Sneak peak by gattu

Dress code as instructed by Mayank

All credits to Aayush, Mayank, Rajat and Anand for handling the logistics.

Top Companies for Leaders

This year four Indian companies figure in the list of Global Top 20 companies for leaders 2007 by Fortune. Hindustan Unilever with fourth spot is the leading Indian company followed by Infosys Technologies at tenth, ICICI at nineteenth and Wipro at twentieth spot.

In Asia Pacific category Hindustan Unilever leads with the first spot followed by Infosys Technologies at second ICICI fourth, Wipro fifth and Tata Consultancy Services Limited at seventh.

All the companies from the technology side are primarily IT Services Company which again triggers the question, is the IT industry in India only about Services?

However this is quite encouraging for Indian companies, they are getting more and more globally recognized. I hope the trend continues.

Here is a demographic distribution of Global Top 20 companies for leaders 2007