This is the best example of hard work

Many of us must have heard the idiom - "Practice makes a man perfect". Today, I saw the best example of how practice makes a man (and a woman) perfect. This routine by a couple performing for Chinese circus is simply breathtaking. They spent eight years in perfecting their routine and the result is amazing. Check out the full 7 min. video (voice-over is in French).

Happy Halloween 2007

Wish you all a very Happy Halloween 2007. We celebrated Halloween at Kosmix this morning and it was lot of fun. Besides the usual monster/scary looking costumes, there were few really innovative costumes - Raavan, Facebook, Myspace, Sushi, American Dude 2, iPhone etc. I was surprised by the efforts people put in for dressing up. I was very lazy to do anything special for the day and I took the same mask that I am using for the last three Halloweens :-). Btw, I borrowed this mask from my roommate at Stanford few years ago. So, I don't know how many Halloweens this mask has celebrated ;-)

Please check out the photographs below or online album. It was a great event for Kosmix as everybody came together after a long time to celebrate Halloween 2007. Kosmix is really a fun place to work for!

Outside our office

Cool dudes

Note: I am wearing a red mask in the middle of the picture.

View more pictures here

Jalebi - the vintage ad of 1990s

Vaibhav, Nihir, Janhavi, Aditya, Vivek and I went to Sunnyvale temple today to celebrate Dussehra. I was surprised by the turnout of the people at the temple - around 300 people during the lunch time. We waited for 30 mins in the queue for the 'free' food. The wait was well worth it as the food was really delicious. The way Janhavi asked me for 'extra' Jalebi reminded me of the kid in the classic Dhaara Oil ad of 1990s. It is among my favorite TV ads along with Cadbury's ads.

 

Look at the new ad when the original kid (Krish Chawla) is tempting his little brother with Jalebis (please forward the first minute of this video. There is some problem in the uploaded file):

 

Few other memorable TV ads - a trip down memory lane:

Cadbury's Chocolate
I love you Rasna
'Vicks ki Goli lo'
Fevicol Ad
Preity Zinta's Perk Ad

If you have link to some other classic ad, please send me the link and I will post it here. Thanks!

Think Different

A classic video from the most innovative company in the technology industry in the last three decades. Can you guess the name??? If you don't get it, check out the last few seconds of this video!

Check out making of "Think Different" video also.

What is the relationship between 14khz music and Google?

  Can anyone guess the relationship between 14 KHz music and Google? I know it is a weird question. We can certainly use Google to find the music (most often free!) but can we find it's "frequency"? I found the answer to this question on Kevin Kelly's blog today.

According to Wikipedia, frequency is the measurement of the number of occurrences of a repeated event per unit of time.  Therefore, frequency can be calculated as (# of occurrences) / (total time taken).

 

Total # of seconds in a year:
Seconds in a day = 24 hrs * 60 mins * 60 sec = 86,400 sec
Seconds in a year = 86,400 sec * 365 days = 31.536 million

Total # of Google searches in a year worldwide:
# of Google searches / month = 37.1 billions (according to Comscore)
# of Google searches / year = 37.1 b * 12 = 445.2  b

 

So, frequency of search = 445.2b /31.563m = 14110 or 14.11k. This means that people conduct 14.11 searches every second in a year.

If every Google user clicks on the mouse / keyboard button for searching, then the sound that will be produced will be of 14khz. Hence, the relationship of 14khz and Google :-).

Based on similar lines, frequency of total web search is 23 KHz (Comscore reports that total web search per month is ~61 billions).

Stanford Reunion in San Francisco

On Friday night, I met lot of my old friends from MS&E at Stanford - class of 2005 and 2006. I am in touch with few friends and meet them quite regularly. However, I was happy to see Arthur whom I have never met in the last two years. I was outside the country when he graduated in 2005 and after that, I didn't get a chance to meet him as he was working in Amsterdam. He is one of the most intelligent yet modest person I have ever met - no wonder why he got the best student award for 2005. I wish him all the success in his new life as PhD student. I hope Kenny (another PhD student) and Arthur can solve lot of energy problems that we are facing today :-).

It's great to know that everybody is doing so well in their career after graduating from Stanford. Here is one of the photographs that we took after the dinner at Grand Pu Bah in San Francisco.

People from left to right (I forgot few names):

Front row: Ankit, Caroline, ...
Middle row: Oznur, Ankur. Vaibhav, Maher, Juliette, Susan, Rami
Back row: Arthur, Kenny, Abeer, Aman, Jon, Sameer, Abid

Few more pictures - 1, 2, 3 and 4

Btw, I should thank Maher for taking initiative in organizing this get-together. He is an awesome guy and fun to talk to. One thing that I really like about him is his smile!

One paragraph that explains life!

I received an email from Vinod Uncle today and I was quite moved by the message of the email. I am including the full content here:

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed:

"Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?

To this Arthur Ashe replied:

The world over -- 5 million children start playing tennis, 500 thousand learn to play tennis, 50 thousand learn professional tennis, 5,000 come to the circuit, 500 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals,

When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?".

And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

The email ends with a wonderful short poem:

Happiness keeps u Sweet,
Trials keep u Strong,
Sorrow keeps u Human,
Failure Keeps u Humble,
Success keeps u Glowing,
But only God Keeps u Going.....

Keep Going.....

"The Keg Party"

Yesterday, Nihir, Janhavi, Gaurav and I organized a beer party at our house! It was a special party because Nihir discovered that Heineken has started selling five liters keg. He can come up with any excuse for drinking :-) Appropriately, he named the party as "The Keg Party".

Lot of people showed up for the party and as expected, beer flowed freely. By the time, we finished up (around 4am), 12-15 liters of beer were over. There was Diet Coke for people like me who don't drink alcohol and lot of snacks - samosas from Rajjot Sweets & Snacks, crackers, chips etc.

Some people played poker where Poker pro (Nihir) lost all his money and Abhas made lot of money (thanks to beginner's luck). There was intense political discussion going on the sides. Although I was busy playing games on Sony Play Station, I heard words like World War II, India-Pakistan War etc. I don't know who started the discussion but Vivek was completely bored by this. Janhavi was in awesome form and she was easily winning in the fighting game on our PS2. I guess her boxing lessons helped her - she is pro in boxing and once gave a bloody nose to her boxing coach.

For people who couldn't join us last night: we will organize another party soon. We hope to see you in our next beer bash!

India is World Champions!

The young Indian cricket team made history today by defeating Pakistan by 5 runs in the final of Twenty 20 World Cup! Wow...what a match it was. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Sreesanth taking an easy catch. Look at the video below.

Nihir, Janhavi and I got up at 5 in the morning to watch the finals. Perhaps, this is the earliest I have woken up in the last few years (not even for my exams, classes, flights or interviews!). And believe me, every moment was worth it.

India has won a world cup after a long long wait - 24 years and six World Cups later. Last time, it was Kapil Dev's young team who brought world cup to India and this time, it was young, ambitious and ever-enthusiastic team of Mahendra Singh Dhoni who brought laurels for Indian cricket.

The way Indian players celebrated during the presentation ceremony says it all - what this win meant to them.

It will be cherished by everyone for a long time to come.

Two pictures tell the full story

India is in the finals of Twenty20 World Cup!!! They comprehensively defeated the world champions Australia. Two pictures tell the full story:

Chak De India

India is going to play against Australia in the semi-finals of Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in few hours from now. Nobody predicted that this young Indian team would do well in this world cup given the fact that Indian trio of Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid opted out of the tournament. However, the boys surprised everybody including themselves by reaching semis.

Apart from tremendous batting display (e.g. Yuvraj's six sixes, Rohit Sharma quick fire fifty etc), the major differentiating factor in this tournament is the fielding. Just look at the breathtaking catch by Dinesh Karthik:

India has just lost one game against New Zealand so far. Can they beat the world champions Australia? I hope they bring laurels to India as the young girls did in the movie - Chak De India.

What an innings?

I couldn't believe when I saw six sixes in a row by Yuvraj Singh in Twenty20 World Cup match against England. Yuvraj's batting reminded me of his bowling when he conceded five sixes in a row to Dimitri Mascarenhas few weeks ago. It was a sweet revenge for him!

Brooklyn Bridge

Some pictures from my walk on Brooklyn Bridge, New York City:

India vs India

I came across India Poised initiative from Times of India to spread the message of hope among Indian citizens. The message starts like this:

"There are two Indias in this country.

One India is straining at the leash, eager to spring forth and live up to all the adjectives that the world has been showering recently upon us.

The other India is the leash".

I think this is a perfect characterization of the people - there are people who are always pessimistic and think that nothing will change in India. And there are other people like Narayan Murthy, APJ Abdul Kalam, Subroto Roy, Dhirubhai Ambani etc. who work hard to make things happen.

I belong to the second bucket of people. What about you?

My personal favorite lines from this message are:

"History, they say, is a bad motorist. It rarely ever signals its intentions when it is taking a turn. This is that rarely-ever moment. History is turning a page"

Please check out the full video in the amazing voice of Amitabh Bachchan:

I don't think we're going to make it

"I don't think we're going to make it," John Doerr proclaims, in an emotional talk about climate change and investment at TED 2007. John is one of my favorite VCs in Silicon Valley and I always love to listen what he has to say about global warming.

 

 

Please also watch John Doerr's amazing videos at Stanford University - Educators Corner

View from the top

I live in a posh area of Menlo Park - next to the famed Sand Hill Road in Sharon Heights Area. This area is minutes away from Stanford University and 2 mins. drive to I-280 - one of the best looking freeway I have ever seen after my drive from Aachen, Germany to Paris, France.

Outcomes vs. Activity

Few days ago, I read a great blog post on Outcomes vs Activity.  Here is a small excerpt from it:

"I am embarrassed to say that it took me 10 years to learn one of the most fundamental pillars of leadership: It is all about outcomes — and not activities. This business truth is simple and obvious, yet, extraordinarily powerful. Unfortunately, it remains strangely elusive for many founders, and most people."    ... More

Miami Unplugged