A group of managers are given an assignment to measure the height of a flagpole. So they go out to the flagpole with ladders and tape measures, and they're falling off the ladders and dropping the tape measures. The whole thing is just a mess.
An engineer comes along and sees what they're trying to do, walks over, pulls the flagpole out of the ground, lays it flat, measures it from end to end, gives the measurement to one of the managers and walks away.
After the engineer has gone, one manager turns to another and laughs: "Isn't that just like an engineer? We're looking for the height and he gives us the length!"
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
The Day India Burned
Last weekend I watched a BBC documentary on India's Partition titled "The Day India Burned" on YouTube. I was deeply touched and disturbed on the plight of people on all sides(Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs). The partition is considered as on of the largest human migrations, and the number varies from 12.5 million to 20 million. The number of deaths is between 200 thousand to over a million. Apart from these, millions were looted, women raped, people beaten up and forced conversions. So many people got affected because of the decision of few. And its a shame on those few for not planning on such a mammoth event and not taking care of the people they said they were fighting for. Also, it is a disgrace for the British empire for not thinking through on the partition and preparing a blue-print for it. A few more months of their troop deployment could have saved so many innocent lives.
At the same time, its bizarre to imagine what got into people's mind when they started this pandemonium. They went about committing these crimes in their neighborhood, their community, their cities. Shame to the leaders, political and religious, from both sides, who did not take enough actions to minimise the chaos.
Imagine being born in those times, not knowing whether you will live to see another tomorrow, enmity prevalent all over the streets, seeing your loved ones going through pain or all your wealth and materials being looted or burned in front of helpless you . How painful and difficult would it have been to leave your native place and move to a new one and in all probability being empty handed.
I am so lucky to have not seen any of the partition horrors and being born in a free democracy. I thank my previous generations to have come out of revulsion and building a strong and progressive nation.
At the same time, its bizarre to imagine what got into people's mind when they started this pandemonium. They went about committing these crimes in their neighborhood, their community, their cities. Shame to the leaders, political and religious, from both sides, who did not take enough actions to minimise the chaos.
Imagine being born in those times, not knowing whether you will live to see another tomorrow, enmity prevalent all over the streets, seeing your loved ones going through pain or all your wealth and materials being looted or burned in front of helpless you . How painful and difficult would it have been to leave your native place and move to a new one and in all probability being empty handed.
I am so lucky to have not seen any of the partition horrors and being born in a free democracy. I thank my previous generations to have come out of revulsion and building a strong and progressive nation.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
How Each One Of Us Can Change The World
The title of this blog is borrowed from the book "Giving" by Bill Clinton. I just finished reading it and it has been a fantastic read. I am not qualified enough to write a review for a book, so please dont consider this post as one. I decided to write about this book since I feel each one of us should read it. The book is aptly titled "Giving". Bill talks about how each one of us with whatever resources we have, can make a positive contribution towards hundreds and thousands of causes that might be close to our heart. In the book he highlights a lot of causes including HIV/AIDS treatment, child education, women empowerment, environment improvement, community tutoring, general hygiene, old age support and many more. Alongwith each of these, he also gives many examples on how common people like you and me have made significant impact and continued to contribute against all odds. I salute each one of those mentioned and otherwise for their dedication that is making the world a better place to live in. The book also mentions certain "do's" and "dont's" when contributing so that they can have the maximum bearing. After reading the book, I also realized that there are so many in need and there are so many areas we can contribute, we are lucky to be in a position to give. It doesn't matter how small or big our contribution is, what really matters is that we do.
I thank and congratulate Bill Clinton for writing a great eye-opener and his own personal efforts including the Clinton foundation for lots of positive contributions to the society. I would end by qouting him "We all have the capacity to do great things".
I thank and congratulate Bill Clinton for writing a great eye-opener and his own personal efforts including the Clinton foundation for lots of positive contributions to the society. I would end by qouting him "We all have the capacity to do great things".
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Cool features of Bing Search
After using Bing alongside Google for more than a month now, I have had a liking for few of Bing's feature and would like to see something similar in Google.
Bing textual Search:
Summary - I like to be able to see a concise view of a search result page that helps me to decide whether or not that particular search result is useful or not.
Additional Information on the left column - I like the way Bing picks up the search term and gets helpful links that include reference articles, related terms, additional insights into searches and so on. These help to narrow down searches and get better results.
Bing images search:
Although most of the options to filter and narrow down the results are similar to Google, I love the way it pulls up a list of "Related People" if you search for a person or a list of attractions, tourism info, maps, weather, etc, if you search for a place, or a list of reviews, prices, deals, etc. when you search for a product. I also like to be able to just pull the vertical scroller for more images and not having to click page numbers to go to the next set of results.
Bing video search:
The short preview feature when you hover your mouse over the video seems to be helpful, but the result quality is not as good as Google's video search, which is what is the most important factor when I search.
Bing Shopping:
Although I find the shopping results page a little too cluttered in Bing as compared to Google, I feel that the Category feature on the left column is slightly better in Bing that Google.
These are a few features I think really make Bing sleeker that Google in terms of user interaction, however when it comes down to the search results quality, Bing needs to catch up. Google's search algorithms seems to be better in a few areas. However, Bing engineers, just to underscore, it does not matter how many search results are pulled up(I notice that Google almost everytime pulls up 20 to 30 times the number Bing gets), its Google's results' quality that beats Bing's seldom.
Bing textual Search:
Summary - I like to be able to see a concise view of a search result page that helps me to decide whether or not that particular search result is useful or not.
Additional Information on the left column - I like the way Bing picks up the search term and gets helpful links that include reference articles, related terms, additional insights into searches and so on. These help to narrow down searches and get better results.
Bing images search:
Although most of the options to filter and narrow down the results are similar to Google, I love the way it pulls up a list of "Related People" if you search for a person or a list of attractions, tourism info, maps, weather, etc, if you search for a place, or a list of reviews, prices, deals, etc. when you search for a product. I also like to be able to just pull the vertical scroller for more images and not having to click page numbers to go to the next set of results.
Bing video search:
The short preview feature when you hover your mouse over the video seems to be helpful, but the result quality is not as good as Google's video search, which is what is the most important factor when I search.
Bing Shopping:
Although I find the shopping results page a little too cluttered in Bing as compared to Google, I feel that the Category feature on the left column is slightly better in Bing that Google.
These are a few features I think really make Bing sleeker that Google in terms of user interaction, however when it comes down to the search results quality, Bing needs to catch up. Google's search algorithms seems to be better in a few areas. However, Bing engineers, just to underscore, it does not matter how many search results are pulled up(I notice that Google almost everytime pulls up 20 to 30 times the number Bing gets), its Google's results' quality that beats Bing's seldom.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Should I Bing or continue Googling
It has been quite a while since Bing(Live), the search engine from Microsoft has been launched and many of you reading this would be wondering as to why am I comparing Bing to Google after such a long time. I wanted to use Bing extensively before even trying to compare it with Google. Google for me, has been THE search engine from the start. I did try Alta Vista, Ask, Yahoo Search but after a couple of searches then, I knew that I had to go to Google for all my web related searches.
After the huge hype sorrounding the launch of Bing, I decided to try it out. I made Google as my benchmark since I was comparing Bing against Google. I started off going with Bings punchline - "The Decision Engine". I couldnt figure out as to why MS calls Bing a decision engine. All of my searches just gave me search results. I typed in specific questions, but still search results. Maybe, I just dont get the whole concept of the decision engine!
My searches for specific terms like "Liz Hurley", "vancouver 2010", "super bowl", "nikon d90", etc. returned excellent results. As compared to Google, Bing returned more refined search reults on the search page directly rather than having to click on the results and figuring out myself. Moving on to my more generic searhes that included "best blogging sites", "mta schedule", "health care summit", etc. I found that Bing performed just about OK. Some of my searches returned almost similar results to what Google did. Others were not as good. Also when I searched for current news or events, I realized Google had a much broader base and that Google crawlers were made to work much harder. Google also seems to have an upper hand when it comes to searching within Blogs.
Now comes the part that impressed me the most. Type in terms like "risotto recipes", "flight tracker", "flight to sfo from nyc", "movie listing" or "weather 07306" . These queries returned answers that were relevant to what I was looking for. I did not have to look among the search results to locate my answer. Bing is hands down much more superior to Google in these kind of searches. A couple of other neat features that I liked about Bing were the "summary" feature that lets you get more information about a specific result and the "related searches" that come up on the left margin.
Overall, there are few areas where Bing does impress and beats Google, however overall I am a little disappointed that with all the engineering prowess of Microsoft, they have failed to raise the bar on web based textual searches. It seems that I will stick with Google and conintue Googling, ofcourse Bing once in a while!
After the huge hype sorrounding the launch of Bing, I decided to try it out. I made Google as my benchmark since I was comparing Bing against Google. I started off going with Bings punchline - "The Decision Engine". I couldnt figure out as to why MS calls Bing a decision engine. All of my searches just gave me search results. I typed in specific questions, but still search results. Maybe, I just dont get the whole concept of the decision engine!
My searches for specific terms like "Liz Hurley", "vancouver 2010", "super bowl", "nikon d90", etc. returned excellent results. As compared to Google, Bing returned more refined search reults on the search page directly rather than having to click on the results and figuring out myself. Moving on to my more generic searhes that included "best blogging sites", "mta schedule", "health care summit", etc. I found that Bing performed just about OK. Some of my searches returned almost similar results to what Google did. Others were not as good. Also when I searched for current news or events, I realized Google had a much broader base and that Google crawlers were made to work much harder. Google also seems to have an upper hand when it comes to searching within Blogs.
Now comes the part that impressed me the most. Type in terms like "risotto recipes", "flight tracker", "flight to sfo from nyc", "movie listing" or "weather 07306" . These queries returned answers that were relevant to what I was looking for. I did not have to look among the search results to locate my answer. Bing is hands down much more superior to Google in these kind of searches. A couple of other neat features that I liked about Bing were the "summary" feature that lets you get more information about a specific result and the "related searches" that come up on the left margin.
Overall, there are few areas where Bing does impress and beats Google, however overall I am a little disappointed that with all the engineering prowess of Microsoft, they have failed to raise the bar on web based textual searches. It seems that I will stick with Google and conintue Googling, ofcourse Bing once in a while!
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Apple proposing Microsoft
News came out a couple of weeks back about Apple and Microsoft possibly entering into a wedlock. Wow, that will be something to watch and watching most closely will be Google.
Three big technological competing companies, all entering into different arrangements to be the bigger one by taking the help of each other. Apple wanted Google as the default search engine, maps application and video content for its revolutionary iPhone. Google needed that alliance to push for more advertising revenues from search. Microsoft was sitting in a corner and wondering what to do. They came out with Bing, although it did not get a lot of traction. Meanwhile Google decided to enter the hugely popular mobile market. Not only did they come out with an open-source operating system(Android) for mobile devices, they launched their own mobile phone - Nexus One. Apple sees it as a big threat to their iPhone market. Seriously its Nexus One that can really disrupt iPhone's success. Apple has also realized that it has been making Google richer by continuing with them for the iPhone's search tool. They plan to put a stop on this revenue channel by dumping Google and shaking hands with their traditional rival Microsoft and use Bing as their default search engine. Good news for Microsoft. However, it still needs to be seen whether Bing will be popular among users. Till date, it has only been able to capture 6%-7% of web search market. This alliance might be a good test to judge Microsoft's search capabilities.
Among all this dynamics, one thing that should not be forgotten by these companies is that their rivalry should not affect their users, any wrong move and we, the users would migrate.
Three big technological competing companies, all entering into different arrangements to be the bigger one by taking the help of each other. Apple wanted Google as the default search engine, maps application and video content for its revolutionary iPhone. Google needed that alliance to push for more advertising revenues from search. Microsoft was sitting in a corner and wondering what to do. They came out with Bing, although it did not get a lot of traction. Meanwhile Google decided to enter the hugely popular mobile market. Not only did they come out with an open-source operating system(Android) for mobile devices, they launched their own mobile phone - Nexus One. Apple sees it as a big threat to their iPhone market. Seriously its Nexus One that can really disrupt iPhone's success. Apple has also realized that it has been making Google richer by continuing with them for the iPhone's search tool. They plan to put a stop on this revenue channel by dumping Google and shaking hands with their traditional rival Microsoft and use Bing as their default search engine. Good news for Microsoft. However, it still needs to be seen whether Bing will be popular among users. Till date, it has only been able to capture 6%-7% of web search market. This alliance might be a good test to judge Microsoft's search capabilities.
Among all this dynamics, one thing that should not be forgotten by these companies is that their rivalry should not affect their users, any wrong move and we, the users would migrate.
Monday, February 15, 2010
"Mis"Using Search Engines
Have we become too much dependent on web search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo or Ask? The reason I ask this question is to think about all the different kind of queries we type in the search boxes of these search engines.
I am a big user of search engines, and had it been not for the search engines, read Google, I would not have been hooked to the Internet. I use search engines, read Google, for almost all kinds of queries I have. Be it product comparison or upcoming movies, weather updates or web development related questions, traffic directions to news updates, word meanings or even how to make money on Internet, I dig into the Internet using search engines. How else? There is so much "free for all" wealth on the Internet and the only way to grab it is via the search engines. I wonder should we, all Internet users, not honor the Larry Page's and Sergey Brin's of the world for giving the common man access to this wealth and the ability to fully utilize the power of the Internet.
However, off late, I have started to realize that we are in some way misusing these search engines too. Do i need to type in Yahoo in the search box to reach yahoo.com when I know the web address of yahoo? Or for that matter, can i not just type gmail.com on the browsers address bar rather than typing gmail in the search box, its just a question of 4 more characters (.com). I think its the mental attitude that forces me to go via the search engine to any website I want to go to. Should I not relieve the search engines for these "unnecessary" searches.
As the first step to get rid of the "search-engine" obsession, I decided to remove Google as my default web page. Next was to use the browsers built in Favorites or Bookmarks feature. I tagged my most frequently visited websites for emails, news, weather, sports updates, dictionary sites and other utility websites. I have also started to use the search bar embedded in my browsers to perform searches rather than visiting the search engines home page. I still use the search engines a lot but now i restrict myself to using them only when required. I also phrase my search query better before I just type in the box and click "Search".
The reason I decided to better utilize the search engines was to reduce unnecessary search look-ups, optimize Internet bandwidth usage, reduce hardware wastage and more importantly to conserve energy. I know,its petty, but I know in the long run, it will add up and with lots of Internet users deciding to use search engines optimally, I am pretty sure it will help.
I know you have reached this blog via a search engine and I cant help but congratulate you on using the search engine optimally this time :)
I am a big user of search engines, and had it been not for the search engines, read Google, I would not have been hooked to the Internet. I use search engines, read Google, for almost all kinds of queries I have. Be it product comparison or upcoming movies, weather updates or web development related questions, traffic directions to news updates, word meanings or even how to make money on Internet, I dig into the Internet using search engines. How else? There is so much "free for all" wealth on the Internet and the only way to grab it is via the search engines. I wonder should we, all Internet users, not honor the Larry Page's and Sergey Brin's of the world for giving the common man access to this wealth and the ability to fully utilize the power of the Internet.
However, off late, I have started to realize that we are in some way misusing these search engines too. Do i need to type in Yahoo in the search box to reach yahoo.com when I know the web address of yahoo? Or for that matter, can i not just type gmail.com on the browsers address bar rather than typing gmail in the search box, its just a question of 4 more characters (.com). I think its the mental attitude that forces me to go via the search engine to any website I want to go to. Should I not relieve the search engines for these "unnecessary" searches.
As the first step to get rid of the "search-engine" obsession, I decided to remove Google as my default web page. Next was to use the browsers built in Favorites or Bookmarks feature. I tagged my most frequently visited websites for emails, news, weather, sports updates, dictionary sites and other utility websites. I have also started to use the search bar embedded in my browsers to perform searches rather than visiting the search engines home page. I still use the search engines a lot but now i restrict myself to using them only when required. I also phrase my search query better before I just type in the box and click "Search".
The reason I decided to better utilize the search engines was to reduce unnecessary search look-ups, optimize Internet bandwidth usage, reduce hardware wastage and more importantly to conserve energy. I know,its petty, but I know in the long run, it will add up and with lots of Internet users deciding to use search engines optimally, I am pretty sure it will help.
I know you have reached this blog via a search engine and I cant help but congratulate you on using the search engine optimally this time :)
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