Metrosexual

Why some guys suddenly became 'metrosexual', a scoop story.

This man is at work one day when he notices that his male co-worker is wearing an earring.
This man knows his co-worker to be a normally conservative fellow andis curious about his sudden change in "fashion sense."
"Yo, Bob, I didn't know you were into earrings."
"Oh, yeah, sure," says Bob sheepishly.
"Really? How long have you been wearing one?"
"Ever since my wife found it in our bed!"

Is Google going the Yahoo way?

• Yahoo was started as a Stanford project, so was Google
• Yahoo started as a search engine, so did Google
• Yahoo came just after the dotcom craze, the boom, and Y2K worries started while Google came just before the dotcom craze, the boom and Y2K worries started ending.
• Geeks swore by Yahoo, geeks swear by Google
• Yahoo stocks were a huge success. C'est la même for Google
• Yahoo acquired geocities, Google acquired blogger
• Yahoo acquired egroups, Google acquired usenet archives
• Egroups is Yahoo groups, usenet archives is now Google groups
• File attachments are not stored anymore, ditto here
• Yahoo mail's storage space of 10 MB was one of the highest at that time until Lycos etc were started; Gmail's 1 GB space was the highest until Rediffmail etc increased theirs
• Yahoo cobranded search engine for websites, Google cobranded search engine for websites
• Yahoo has Yahoo personals, Google has orkut [yes, I know orkut is not the same as Yahoo personals, but the concept is the same, right?]
• Yahoo has webrank, Google has pagerank
• Yahoo has paid links; Google has ‘ads by gooooogle’
• Yahoo stopped working with cookies turned off; Google is doing the same thing now
• Yahoo toolbar, Google toolbar
• Yahoo news, Google news
• Yahoo mail, Gmail
• Yahoo mobile, Google wireless
• Yahoo.co.in etc, Google.co.in etc
• Yahoo shop, Froogle
• Yahoo photos, Picassa (I know, not the same, but the concept...)
• Yahoo became bloated, Google is still expanding
• People started hating Yahoo after it became big; people have just started for Google (google-watch.org)
• Yahoo IPO, Google IPO

These are just the similarities and Google's features are (currently) way better than Yahoo's but everybody likes an underdog and child is the father of man. Google too may become what Yahoo is now, and something else may take its place. Remember IE vs. Netscape? Then it was IE vs. Opera and now it is IE vs. Mozilla. Every pair adds some features to itself and reach their critical mass after which they both near-collapse. One has the power to stay afloat while the other sinks and a fledgling takes it place.

Slimes of India

This country was fortunate enough to have such newspapers as The Hindu, The Indian Express (the old one, not the new one), Deccan Herald, to name a few. This country is also unfortunate to have such newspapers as Times of India and Mid-day.

Suman Kumar has blogged about TOI, so has Jivha. My friends who shifted to Bombay are happy though, they do not have to buy glossy magazines to get pictures of semi-naked women and read about their escapades. They just buy ToI, and log on to its website/blog where some 'articles' look like they were lifted straight out of The Penthouse Diaries. India doesn't have a tablod like The Sun? No man, we have ToI. It has shown more areola than an adoloscent's wet-dream.

There used to be a time when Americans said 'I buy Playboy for the articles'. Now many Indians are saying the same: 'I buy ToI for the articles'. Read what Pradyuman Maheshwari has to say about it.

Trying to break into Chennai with such a newspaper woule be like selling George W Bush to the Arabs or John Kerry to the Republicans, or Mu. Karunanidhi to Jayalalithaa. Not so long ago, ToI caught Jaya Madam, the CM of TN, to publish a book from ToI stables to gain a foothold in the Hindu (the newspaper) dominated Chennai. Jaya Madam wanted ToI to act as a counter-balance to what she says a 'Hostile Media loaded with personal vendetta against a self-made woman' that is The Hindu and The New Indian Express. Maybe more on this in a later post. Nothing has transpired still and The Hindu still rules supreme. The day ToI becomes the leading publisher in Chennai like it says, 'in Mumbai Pune Delhi Calcutta...', Hell would have frozen over. Moreover the pretty lineup sounds like a copy of 'Singapore, Malaysia, Ceylon, Thailand aagiya naadugalil prasithi pettra Gopal Palpodi'. It means, 'Gopal Toothpowder, Famous in [the country list].'

250 in one day

Yippee!!! yesterday my blog registered 250 hits on 14th October 2004. Some came here after the brouhaha created yesterday. Thanks to all those who emailed their support to me and bollocks to the guy(s) who wrote those obnoxious comments. As I always say, 'No publicity is negative publicity'. Am I the Maddox of this place, or what?

Hatred

Some guys seem to think I must be a loser for keeping this blog and talk to all ye faithful readers (anyone, please?) Some of the most vocal guys seem to think that since I attacked them personally in this blog, they have to write comments for every article that I have written so far. The anonymity provided by the internet and anonymous comments allowed seem to be very favourable for him (or them) so that he is(or they are) saying things that they would not have dared to say it (oh boy, more trouble heading my way). I have taken down the comments section just because of him (or them). He says (or they say) I seem to have a lot of time writing this blog because he seems (or they seem) to have a lot of time reading all the entries in my blog. BTW, I had a surge of visitors for this place (not exactly unique visits) and touched a new high of 215+, still climbing and pushing my blog ratings so high. Thank You, my friends, for that. I am happy to have provided another reason for your existence. Also, the name of the poster has also been changed to duffer to appease the gods that may be. Peace, man!

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche is a genius. He is widely misunderstood as a misogynist and a racist. His masterwork piece was 'Human, All Too Human (Menschliches, Allzumenschliches)', a collection of aphorisms mainly concerned with human psychology. In this he says wordly truths that will hold their ground even if sun rises in the west. I know, sun rises in the west in some planets and this is all too referential. In these planets, then it becomes 'even if sun rises in the east'. But, the frame of reference should be and always will be the earth. In his book, he says,

Presence of witnesses. One is twice as happy to dive after a man who has fallen into the water if people are present who do not dare to.

The friend's secret. There will be but few people who, when at a loss for topics of conversation, will not reveal the more secret affairs of their friends.

Joy in old age. The thinker or artist whose better self has fled into his works feels an almost malicious joy when he sees his body and spirit slowly broken into and destroyed by time; it is as if he were in a corner, watching a thief at work on his safe, all the while knowing that it is empty and that all his treasures have been rescued.

The infuriating thing about an individual way of life. People are always angry at anyone who chooses very individual standards for his life; because of the extraordinary treatment which that grants to himself, they feel degraded, like ordinary beings.

The right profession. Men seldom endure a profession if they do not believe or persuade themselves that it is basically more important than all others. Women do the same with their lovers.

Boredom. Many people, especially women, do not experience boredom, because they have never learned to work properly.

According to rotten.com, from where the above is lifted, 'Indeed, Sigmund Freud often marveled how Nietzsche's hunches and insights behaved in synchronous agreement with the laborious results of academic psychoanalysis.'

I especially like the one about the individual way of life. Many people when they get to know about my lifestyle try to 'help me'. I have been persisted by some people who want me to introduce me to 'God and his ways' and try to show me 'the path to salvation'. Some say that to succeed as a manager, I need to 'drink socially' and 'smoke casually' so that I am not left out of hallway meetings and party chats. Thanks to handkerchief and grape juice, I don't think this might be a problem.

Nortius Maximus

What is it with ethics and management schools? Pertaining to my psycho bosses entry...
We had an ethics presentation by some groups this noon. One group had selected the movie 'Runaway Jury' and ethical dilemmas in it for presentation. The guy, let us call him Nortius Maximus, starts with 'This is a brilliant movie, you must all watch it'. I thought he would be creating enough interest in us to watch the movie. The shock came when he started speaking - he just told the whole story in 10 minutes and to top that, he tells about the 'twist in the end', and gives away the motive for John Cusack's character. He gave away the climax of the movie and he was not the one to be bothered. I was just shocked. Thanks for spoiling the movie for me, arse hole! After the presentation was the following dialogue

Me: You spoiled the movie for me. You gave away the ending!
He: You should've seen this movie. I had sent a mail yesterday about this. The movie was released in 2003 and you had one whole year to see it. It was shared in the LAN also.
Me: (terribly annoyed)
He: (haughty as always)

These are the kind of guys that will give away some secrets just to be in the good books of the boss or to score a notch in their career. After the group members had come back to their seats, one guy, let us call him rollypolly, came sat near me and was talking to another guy, let us call him gizu.
RP: gizu, have you seen the movie yet?
Gizu: no...
RP: you must see it, very nice movie, a nice twist at the end.

Psycho Bosses

'Is your boss a charming, well-educated and polished leader intent on climbing the career ladder? If so, he could be a psychopath, psychologists gathered in Stockholm said on Wednesday.
Recent research has shown that not all psychopaths are violent killers — many of them hold normal jobs, with some rising to the highest levels of executive management.'

I am not saying this, this is the result of a study conducted by Discovery.

more (my archive)... OR on Discovery...

How you wonder, you knew this thing all along but still someone had to research on it to get it out. So, I will be giving out juicy (to you, plain irritating to me) scenes from inside a Pointy-Haired-Boss School from time to time till I graduate.

Teaching Ethics

We had a class on Business Ethics this afternoon. A guest lecture was given by Mrs. Mamta Kachwaha, a lawyer, about Ethics in Indian Scriptures. Ironically, nothing was talked about the scriptures save for two Sanskrit words - dharma and another word for 'centre' that I cannot recall. For about 10 minutes, we were told to 'experience ourselves' through something like yoga.

The class started with the guest asking what ethics was and got responses like 'ethics is not required', 'ethics is something to be preached, not practiced', and 'ethics should not be taught.' One guy was most vocal about ethics. He told how when only he practices ethics while no one else cares about it, why should only he be ethical? He talked about people ganging against someone just because you don't like him. When someone else put his opinion that no one can be ethical throughout his life, he immediately jumped in saying this shows 'the extent to which corruption has seeped into the society.'

The guest was visible shocked at the position at which these guys (we) held ethics. One guy, who thinks his only job in this world is to contradict whatever someone thinks, went on to say that the guest is 'forcing her ethics' on him. This guy had said to a HR prof in the first term that he doesn't listen to his father, so why the hell should he listen to Mintzberg? (or some other human behaviour 'guru' [his words].)

What else can you expect from a class which thinks releasing ford pinto without the all-important safety feature was a-ok, Union Carbide is not at fault for the Bhopal gas leak, and Dow Chemicals need not be held responsible for it? After all, these companies were just doing what the CEO wanted and did not break any law of the land by acting thus! These will be the CEOs, VPs and division heads that place more importance on quarterly profits than the welfare of their employees or the well-being of the society.

When the class ended, most of the guys were joking about the 'self experience "sleep"' they had. They did not realise she was related to a religious movement that helps find divinity through laughter (Art of Living). Had they known this, they would have fought pushed for more such classes because it is coming from a 'spiritual' person. They must have thought that since it is coming from a guest lecturer, that too a lawyer, it was fair game for jokes.