Best Acknowledgement of Book by Lewis

To Lucy Barfield

My Dear Lucy,

I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realized that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it. I shall probably be too deaf to hear, and too old to understand, a word you say, but I shall still be your affectionate Godfather,

C.S. Lewis

Physics is simplified

Some time ago I received a call from a colleague who asked if I would be the referee on the grading of an examination question. He was about to give a student a zero for his answer to a physics question, while the student claimed he should receive a perfect score and would if the system were not set up against the student: The instructor and the student agreed to submit this to an impartial arbiter, and I was selected.

I went to my colleague's office and read the examination question: "Show how it is possible to determine the height of a tall building with the aid of a barometer."  The student had answered: "Take a barometer to the top of the building, attach a long rope to it, lower the barometer to the street and then bring it up, measuring the length of the rope. The length of the rope is the height of the building."

I pointed out that the student really had a strong case for full credit since he had answered the question completely and correctly. On the other hand, if full credit was given, it could well contribute to a high grade for the student in his physics course. A high grade is supposed to certify competence in physics, but the answer did not confirm this. I suggested that the student have another try at answering the question I was not surprised that my colleague agreed, but I was surprised that the student did.

I gave the student six minutes to answer the question with the warning that the answer should show some knowledge of physics. At the end of five minutes, he had not written anything. I asked if he wished to give up, but he said no. He had many answers to this problem; he was just thinking of the best one. I excused myself for interrupting him and asked him to please go on.

In the next minute he dashed off his answer which read:  "Take the barometer to the top of the building and lean over the edge of the roof. Drop that barometer, timing its fall with a stopwatch. Then using the formula H = 0.5g*t squared, calculate the height of the building.  At this point I asked my colleague if he would give up. He conceded, and I gave the student almost full credit. 

In leaving my colleague's office, I recalled that the student had said he had many other answers to the problem, so I asked him what they were. "Oh yes," said the student. "There are a great many ways of getting the height of a tall building with a barometer. For example, you could take the barometer out on a sunny day and measure the height of the barometer and the length of its shadow, and the length of the shadow of the building and by the use of a simple proportion, determine the height of the building." 

"Fine," I asked. "And the others?"  "Yes," said the student. "There is a very basic measurement method that you will like. In this method you take the barometer and begin to walk up the stairs. As you climb the stairs, you mark off the length of the barometer along the wall. You then count the number of marks, and this will give you the height of the building in barometer units. A very direct method."  "Of course, if you want a more sophisticated method, you can tie the barometer to the end of a string, swing it as a pendulum, and determine the value of `g' at the street level and at the top of the building. From the difference of the two values of `g' the height of the building can be calculated." 

Finally, he concluded, there are many other ways of solving the problem. "Probably the best," he said, "is to take the barometer to the basement and knock on the superintendent's door. When the superintendent answers, you speak to him as follows: "Mr. Superintendent, here I have a fine barometer. If you tell me the height of this building, I will give you this barometer."  At this point I asked the student if he really did know the conventional answer to this question. He admitted that he did, said that he was fed up with high school and college instructors trying to teach him how to think, using the "scientific method," and to explore the deep inner logic of the subject in a pedantic way, as is often done in the new mathematics, rather than teaching him the structure of the subject.

The article is by Alexander Calandra and appeared first in "The Saturday Review" (December 21, 1968, p 60). It is also in the collection "More Random Walks in Science" by R.L.Weber, The Institute of Physics, 1982.

Investment Strategies: Which is the best property I can invest in India upto 60 lacs?

Invest only 20 out of 60 in our startup and I can 99.99% guarantee you of more returns (as a startup we have been taught you can never be 100% sure of your success) than any other real estate investment would give you over the next 5 years ;)

Jokes apart, invest in a startup. You can even invest 60 lacs in 10 different startups if you want. Here's why you should invest in a startup:

1. A startup which clicks can give you 10x or even 100x or 1000x returns on your investment. And you don't stand to lose all your money even if all the startups you invest in fail miserably, you can have an exit strategy for the same.

2. For investing in 10 startups in India, you'll at-least go through and meet 100s of them first. Imagine interacting very closely with 100s of passionate people who are chasing their dreams, you'll be an experienced and an even better individual at the end of this entire process. You'll be smarter investing in a startup!

3. Invest in a startup because it'll make your life much more interesting than what investing in gold/real estate would. 60 lacs in a gold brick or a 2 BHK flat in a metro and sit and yawn and wait for 2x returns in 5-10 years? B-O-R-I-N-G

4. Do it for India's eco-system. India is in the process of giving birth to a startup ecosystem in this decade. Bangalore is heading towards Silicon Valley model. We have started believing that we can give birth to the next facebook or google in India. But we can't do it all alone, we need a sustainable eco-system to survive. Especially in India, which is not an early adopter market, we need to spend a tad bit extra to get those first few customers.

Why is US the world leader today? Because rich smart folks over there invest in people and their ideas. They smartly gamble their money in nurturing  small and simple or big and crazy ideas to make this world a better place, and not in real estate and gold!

If you have extra cash lying around, do some research, and invest in your fav ideas/startups in India. Imagine a technology you helped shape up and reach a scalable level can one day reach and be used by millions. It's amazing, isn't it?

It's your chance to become a superhero!!!

Found it on Quora. Originally by http://www.quora.com/Himanshu-Yadav-5

Harak Soni
+919404050836

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Lets take Oath to make RAPE FREE INDIA .

Harak Soni Jain,
haraksoni@gmail.com
+91 9404050836

UICT Sweat Shirt 2013

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Dear UDCTians,

The Latest Sweat Shirt of 2013 is out :)

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Thanks

The Global Soul

One of today's foremost travel writers, Pico Iyer discusses how to find roots without having a place to set them, and how to travel without leaving home.
MONICA J. SMITH FOR MOTHER:First of all, could you define what a global soul is?

PICO IYER: I think a global soul is somebody who lives in the cracks between cultures, or lives in a world so international that he or she has to devise some scratch answers to the most fundamental questions: what is your home, what is your community, what tradition do you belong to, and even who are you. When my grandparents were born, they had a very - perhaps oppressively - strong sense of where they belonged, and which tradition they were a part of. Their boundaries were very strongly defined. In only the last 30 or 40 years all those old categories have been dissolved, and some of us are living in between cultures. Even people who are very rooted only have to turn on a screen and suddenly they're surrounded by more that's unknowable than ever before.

MOTHER:You've written a lot about not really belonging to one place. Without a sense of affiliation, how do you develop a sense of accountability for a place? How do you care about a place without belonging to it, or being invested in it?

PI: When I write about the global soul I'm partly writing about the wonderful possibilities of this new borderless world, and I'm partly writing about the challenges that we have to face. The biggest [challenge] is the lack of responsibility. I think of a certain kind of global soul as living in midair - in an airplane six miles above. The danger of that is that it's a realm of all rights and no responsibilities. In some ways I think being a global soul means having to find out what your affiliations are, that what used to be a given is [now] a chosen. My affiliations would be perhaps to people, to values and to the grounding, centering tendencies I carry wherever I go.

I don't think [Walden Pond] has to be interpreted literally as, "you have to construct a cabin in the woods." I think it has to do with constructing a cabin inside yourself that's sufficiently strong so that [wherever you are], you're still living by the values that are inside that cabin - inside you.

MOTHER: About responsibility, you wrote that a new sense of community must be formed on the basis of something deeper than soil and higher than interest rates. We've discussed personal affiliation, but what would a sense of community be based on?

PI: In recent years, I've spent time in a Catholic hermitage in California. I'm not a Catholic and I'm not entirely a hermit, but this is a form of community that has a very strong sense of ritual and center and purpose. Although I don't feel that I could be a member of it, what I try to do several times a year is live on the fringes of it. Since I'm going to be living on the fringes of community wherever I am, I might as well live on the fringes of one whose values and purpose I really respect. I've been lucky enough to try to choose the communities I surround myself with. One is the Catholic hermitage, and the other is Japan, which in some ways is such an alien place.

Reference: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/2001-04-01/Pico-Iyer-Interview.aspx

7 Entrepreneurial Lessons I Learnt from Life Of Pi

Yann Martel’s Booker Prize winning book, Life of Pi has been transformed beautifully into celluloid by Ang Lee of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain fame. It’s a story of the protagonist Pi’s magical journey on a lifeboat with Richard Parker, a Royal Bengal Tiger for company and in the process discovering himself, faith and God. A captivating story with many dimensions and visually stunning, the movie leaves you engrossed till the end and has also got high ratings from both the critics and audience. There are also some great lessons in life and business, that one can learn from Life Of Pi.

1. If you believe in everything, you will end up not believing in anything at all

Pi’s father Santosh Patel told this to Pi at the dining table, when he was getting inquisitive about different religions and wanted to follow all of them at the same time. His words hold true, not only for religion, but are also valid for our daily life and business. It’s difficult to follow different paths at the same time, as many of them are conflicting in nature and often create confusion and make it difficult to stay focused and at times, lead to wastage of crucial resources. As an entrepreneur, it’s also important to choose your mentors, guides wisely. Listening to all sorts of advice will harm your chances and cause delay in reaching your end goal. As with faith and advisors in life, entrepreneurs must be careful in choosing their business model and target group. In early days, when an entrepreneur is trying to establish his business, it’s important to prioritize and decide on whether you’re targeting SME’s or Large Enterprises or you’re operating in B2B or B2C segment for the matter. Pursuing divergent and often energy sapping paths lead to quick burnouts and eventual disillusionment with the whole process.

2. Branding is important

Pi Patel was born with the name Piscina Molitor Patel, given by his Uncle after a swimming pool in France. This name obviously caused him lot of anguish as everyone started making fun of his name at school and outside. Pi had to work hard on a rebranding exercise. He realized early, that his name can cause him more pain, going ahead in life. At first, he tried to work on individuals, and later started addressing groups about his name being derived from the Greek letter Pi which is ratio of a circle’s circumference by diameter. But, it didn’t work well for him. So, he decided to remember the value of Pi expressed in several hundred decimal places to drive home the point. Associating a story with the name made it work even better for him. So, if you have to work on creating a new brand name of changing your existing brand name for that matter, work on telling a good story which captures the imagination of the audience. The story makes the brand name stick. And, as Pi Patel learnt it the hard way, rebranding can be a difficult and often expensive exercise. So, if you inherit an unimaginative or not so great brand name, starting rebranding exercise early as Pi did really helps. Come to think of it, if the book or movie title was ‘Life Of Piscine Molitor’, it may not have worked that well. Choosing a good brand name could be your first step towards creating a successful brand.

3. Having a plan is essential, not optional

When Pi was thrown into the Sea on the lifeboat with limited stock of resources after his ship capsized, he had to make a plan to survive the uncertain and indeterminate period in the harsh seas. Fortunately, he found a handbook to help him plan for the time on the lifeboat. If you’re an entrepreneur, think of the handbook as your business plan. It’s important to keep it handy and work according to the plan and of course, keep referring to it, when you’re in doubt and monitor progress as you go along. Probably, the most important resource for an entrepreneur is money and in the beginning, when income is low and uncertain, an entrepreneur needs to make sure, the money (resources) lasts till revenues kick in or next round of funding (help) comes in the choppy waters of entrepreneurial journey. In life also, continuous planning for different stages of your life, and not only during the difficult days, when resources are low, will help you live a good life.

4. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket

When Pi found Richard Parker on the life boat, he got scared and threw all the supplies in the lifeboat to a makeshift raft and tied it to the life boat and decided to shift to the raft. At that moment, it looked like the wise thing to do, without taking into consideration greater dangers, still unknown to him. When the breaching whale appeared at night and upturned Pi’s raft throwing all his supplies to the water, Pi realized, living with Mr. Parker on the boat may be a better option. While starting up, resources are typically scarce and it’s important to guard them and stop leakages or losses. It’s good to have one secure base and address the market. Entering unknown and uncharted territories without adequate research and throwing resources at the market and not protecting your own backyard could be a deadly mistake, few startups can afford. Also, if you have limited resources and there are multiple products, fighting for the same resource, it’s better to spread your resources across groups to reduce dependency on 1 product to succeed, which is a low probability in a highly uncertain startup environment. In life, whether you’re investing for a secure and a better future, it’s good to spread your resources across various available options. For career improvements, consider skill enhancement and be aware of the job market realities and don’t just tie yourself to your current Company, to stay relevant in the long run.

5. Learn to co-exist

After the whale incident, Pi had to reconcile to the fact that he has to live with Mr. Parker on the lifeboat, an idea, which he had been resisting so far. As a first step, he decided to start communicating with Mr. Parker and also set out marking their territories and setting some rules. Having Mr. Parker on board also kept him alert at all times. When Mr. Parker jumped in the waters of Pacific Ocean, looking for fish, Pi helped him to get on board and slowly, he started developing a bond with him. Mr. Parker is both a co-founder and a competitor for Pi in his entrepreneurial journey. An entrepreneur needs to co-exist with both. With co-founders, it’s important to communicate clearly, define roles and responsibilities and ensure that you don’t encroach upon each other’s spaces. An entrepreneur needs to learn to co-exist with competition in the market. Competition keeps him alert and on his toes. And it’s important to keep the competition healthy and not indulge in unethical, dirty tactics in the market. This may even mean, occasionally helping a competitor, while fiercely protecting your market share, if it helps the overall market grow.

6. Keep moving

When Pi reached the mysterious floating island of carnivorous algae inhabited by meerkats, it seemed like, he has reached an oasis of life with bountiful food, water and shelter. But, it probably symbolizes the idea of settling for something average when there could be something much better in store. But, covering the last mile is often the most difficult part of the journey when body and mind wants to give up. Also, it could potentially be a dangerous compromise fraught with dangers, just like living in the island which turns carnivorous at night. In life and business, it’s important to keep moving and not get complacent with interim success, related to reaching some milestones. It’s important to keep an eye on the final destination. Pi kept looking for signs like observing the meerkats running for high ground or finding the tooth inside the flower. An entrepreneur also, has to keep his ears close to the ground and constantly keep evolving and updating his product by launching new versions or even launching new products to address new gaps in the market. Sometimes, it may also mean, changing the business model or exiting the market, if the market dynamics necessitate such an action.

7. Don’t give up

Life Of Pi is a story of perseverance and a story of not giving up, even in the harshest of conditions. Pi didn’t give up hope and he kept moving. Whether it’s the black sea or the dark clouds or the ominous waves or the hungry predator as company, Pi never gave up hope of survival. Similarly, for an entrepreneur, it’s important to remember, that the darkest days are not going to last. It’s important, not to give up on your dreams and give up on life. So, the days, when you are down and in state of despair and almost on the verge of giving up, you must remember, that this stage like everything else in life is only temporary and this too shall pass. There are times, when it may seem like you have tried everything possible within your means and there is only a little more that you can do. In those hours, it’s important to remember, that there is someone watching out for you and you’re not here without a reason. There will be always some opportunities like the flying fish for food or rains for drinking water or the floating island for a bit of rest and respite, which will sustain you, till you reach the shores of success, provided you don’t give up.

So, these are a few of the things I learnt from Life Of Pie. What about you?