This is just so cool. Definitely one of the best series along with Sherlock and House MD. I raced through the books and have reached the last one. I like the way Sherlock takes a twist on different things compared to the book. They have made minor tweaks that achieve a major effect.
The Game of Thrones differs in the sense it cuts out the irrelevant but doesn’t tweak the storyline. Here’s the season 2 art direction trailer.
This is one of the best songs I heard in 2011. I have it on infinite loop or in every play list I have. This is a compilation of the best songs around the world (all tributes) put together.
The guys are just hilarious (and some are quite bad) but some of them are amazingly good.
I think one of the best renditions is by Shankar Tucker which is a mashup.
eSports =Electronic Sports.
A cause I believe in for the last 7 years of my life is now undergoing a ground swell. Many months back, on Kickstarter, a cause was started to record the behind the scenes event for Starcraft 2. A look at the community shaping up and the direction forward. It involved many interviews with people behind the scenes at the MLG events across the USA and now they have returned with their new trailer for the IPL. Another awesome event and fantastic editing.
They showed us a teaser trailer today with their IPL documentary.
I love these guys, you should support StarNation on Facebook. And show some groupie love by visiting their website.
This was their first trailer in case you haven’t seen it yet.
Steve Jobs was a zen student. He studied under Kobun Chino for a long time. The interesting thing is that Kobun Chino was a calligrapher and designer himself who turned to Zen Buddhism. Some guys from Jess3 productions put together a comic book that illustrates the life of Steve Jobs during the time he was ousted from Apple and made a return.
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of Steve Jobs. This book is available on the Kindle now and while you watch the trailer, i’ll download the book.
is now a movie!
On Mark Zuckerberg’s profile and many interviews, you hear him mention “The Ender’s Game” as a book he took inspiration from. Well now according to Variety Magazine it’s coming to a movie with a stellar cast.
Harrison Ford stars in it. The director of Xmen and Wolverine are in it. I’m particularly excited about this because this talks about colonisation of a race vs the humans led by tactical geniuses (a colony led by power hungry intelligent group of humans against another colony of insectoid beings). This is like Terran vs Zerg in Starcraft 2 made into a movie!
The story according to Wikipedia is
Set in Earth’s future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind who have barely survived two conflicts with the Formics (an insectoid alien species also known as the “Buggers”). These aliens show an ant-like group behavior, and are very protective of their leader, much like Earth ants protecting their queen.
In preparation for an anticipated third invasion, an international fleet maintains a school to find and train future fleet commanders. The world’s most talented children, including the novel’s protagonist, Ender Wiggin, are taken at a very young age to a training center known as the Battle School. There, teachers train them in the arts of war through increasingly difficult games including ones undertaken in zero gravity in the Battle Room where Ender’s tactical genius is revealed.
5 years back, in 2007, I shifted to Gurgaon. One of the biggest reasons was to get away from the claustrophobic social compression that I was facing in Chennai. I know too many people there, I had a rough breakup and I wanted to seek greener pastures in finance and opportunity.
I did some research on where I wanted to go and it was to be back in the North. Mostly because it was harder to access for most people and also because there were very interesting developments in the place I decided to look into. That place was Gurgaon tucked in the middle of Haryana, India.
The reason I chose that place was seclusion and the betterment of my self. Perfect candidate for a Self Help dose therapy. I started reading tons of Seth Godin, Steve Pavlina, Zen Habits and books like Allen’s GTD etc. I wasn’t insecure, but I was in need of direction and help. I read Brian Tracy’s eat the frog (the best among the lot) and wrote down tons and tons of notes on productivity, eliminating distraction and the hoopla.
Turns out that I was doing less and reading more. No guesses on how productive I was then. I didn’t realise it then but overall I have come to realise the following about Self Help.
You don’t need it. Most authors that put forward the knowledge do the following
1) Rehash popular content that is rehashed from common sense.
2) Talk about what worked for them.
The problem, and danger with point 2, is that you are unique. You don’t have the same environment or motivations that the author had, so his advice makes for good reading, it’s not necessary it’ll save you or even help you. Take inspiration, not direction or focus from them.
So what did I do and what worked for me? I started with throwing all of the books out. I learned to develop my own system. I took inspiration from ways others did things and tried to incorporate that into my routine if it was helpful. I stopped following the hoopla and praising the second coming of Jesus in productivity too.
I thought I was the only one who thought this way during the immense asskissing everyone was doing and it was nice to see 2 others that thought the same.
Reading self-help advice from other people, however well-intentioned, is no substitute for getting your own damn work done. The sooner you come to terms with this, the better off you’ll be.
Get out there and do stuff because you fundamentally enjoy it and because it makes you better. As a writer, as an analyst, as a techie, whatever. Learn to love practicing the fundamentals and do it better each time. Over time, quality does lead to success, but you have to be patient. Really patient. Turns out, “overnight” success takes years. Maybe even decades. This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Plan accordingly.
Here’s the awesome Derek Siver’s take on this.
I like being reminded that nobody’s going to help me - that it’s all up to me. Itputs my focus back on the things I can control - not waiting for outside circumstances.
The hardest truth, one that I was told by my mentors then was this, “Only you know”. What does that mean? Aren’t you asking in the first place? How can you know when you don’t really know.
The answer is a hard one, it could be summed up in one word: Intuition. You have to learn to trust yourself, better yourself and work with yourself more. Sometimes you know when things are right or when there’s a very strong appeal to something. You learn to trust it and go with that path. It is very hard, I hated getting answer, but I have come to realise it’s because I was looking for the easy way out. I wanted someone to tell me, I didn’t want to listen and put in the effort to find out myself.
Listen to your being. Put in the effort but remember, this worked for me. It doesn’t have to for you, but it’s important to listen more, talk less and start doing the things you love. So what are you getting started on?
An industry that’s bound to explode is the Mobile one. This is not rocket science. Compare your own usage of the mobile phone to what you did 4 years ago. I bet you don’t leave the house without the phone. I forget to take the house key at times, but almost never the mobile. 2011 was a good year for the mobile.
The most interesting statistic, that I found, from a post on that by Chetan Sharma Consulting is that it took us 19 years to activate the first billion phones on the planet. But we have activated the last of the 6 billion phones that are active. Meaning 5 billion phones were activated in 15 months. Amazing!
Here are some things I find particularly interesting for the year and look forward to following us
1) Amazon’s entry into mobile.
Shifting the landscape from a communication only platform that the device currently is to a consumer packed ordering unit. I personally think that if amazon can pull off a phone that I can show around and get readings (social mined data about things I wish to buy to get an opinion) it would be a huge hit.
2) Google/Android vs Apple/iOS
The fight will continue. More activations, more of this closed-open bullshit but a whole lot of improvement from both ends. I doubt Android can reach the sweet spot of consumer satisfaction like Apple has done, just like I don’t think Big Bazaar is going to compete with places like Walmart. The blackberry is dying. Nokia is not picking up gear and the Windows phone is just too damn late.
3) Faster Data Connections
India is pretty much effed in the broadband space. I’m paying obscene amounts to maintain a net connection that my friend pays 1/3rd the rate for. So what’s my relief. 3G and 4G connects. Sure, Japan is miles and miles ahead with it’s 5G connect but I hope we get there soon and this year seems promising. We have to kill people like Raja from blocking our entry to be leaders in the mobile space.
4) Mobile Payments
I have used services like Mobikwik and paid via mobile. How cool would it be if every shop went the Google Wallet way? I can’t wait to use the one device I carry everywhere as a wallet, communication platform AND workstation. Just like we had tons of websites crop in the e-commerce space, the m-commerce space is coming. I think in flights, cleartrip would do really well as well since they are early adapters.
5) Location based services will finally reach maturity
Foursquare and the gang can finally hit an important part where they populate content with more activations. Once they stop the gamefication business and focus on adding value to consumers by offering tips or connecting people at a certain location, I think foursquare will be awesome. Also discounts/deals activated by finding out my location. So if I go to Bangalore Central, I should know what’s the latest deal there and which of my friends just visited.
I would urge you to read the whole post as well. There are some fascinating things there. I’ll add up a post on what I see in Mobile gaming in the future as well.
When you are in any environment that is challenging, you will have people better than you. Sometimes they are far better than you. In an environment like IIT, where I had my undergraduate studies, this feeling multiplies itself to the point of pushing you to insecurity.
So how do you cope up with such talent and intelligence? By telling yourself, you have no talent. I wish someone told me that it was ok to not be the smartest guy in the room.
What you do and can have is an unbelievable tenacity to work hard. That is the single thing every human being is born with. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
This has been reiterated by my brother, who went on to learn CSS when I had a headstart on him.
This was reiterated when my friend, who is now part of a band, was far behind in learning the guitar.
This was reiterated when someone flew with the same idea I had of commentating and made it a daily tv show.
The lesson here is well summarised in this post I read recently where the author says he has no talent, but hardwork and therefore wins.
It is true. I have no talent. What I do have is a lot of practice. And I am not talking about occasionally dabbling in on weekends. I am talking about the kind of practice where I beat it into submission (though often times the code wins).
The kind of practice where all of a sudden I realize that it is 2am and I’m exhausted physically so I should go to bed, but mentally I feel on fire so I let the code have me for another hour or two (I imagine this state to be like a marathon runner or ironman near the end of their race).
am also not very smart. I have a good memory (though my wife will tell you it has some missing pieces) and I work really hard. Really hard. I get that from my dad. He is also not very smart (his words, not mine), with a good memory and works really hard.
I am sick of hearing people say, “Oh, I love your code, I wish I could do that.” You can. The only reason you can’t is because you don’t practice enough. I used to think that I wasn’t smart enough. I was jealous of those that did crazy code stuff that I couldn’t even comprehend. Then, one day, I ran into something I did not understand and instead of giving up, I pushed through. I sat there in front of my computer for hours and wrestled with class and class instance variables.
That day was a turning point for me. It was the last time I thought that whether or not I was successful depended on my talent or intelligence. It really comes down to hard work people. Ever since then, I have attacked each thing that I do not understand until I understand it.
“We suffer one of two things. Either the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. You’ve got to choose discipline, versus regret, because discipline weighs ounces and regret weighs tons.”
- Jim Rohn from “Conversations with Millionaires
How do you get into a startup with no experience in that field? I have often wondered about this question. I have been a part of a few startups, but I’m a generalist. I work at different things and do different things together. There’s no one area or niche where I’m the authority on decisions. This could be good, I could be considered to be like water, but this can make it very hard to get into a startup unless you have relevant experience.
Justin Kan, founder of Justin TV has some great tips for getting into startups where you have no skill sets. Some of them are before you get into the startup, but all useful to note in the end.
I’m not going into the existential question of why you should join a startup, if at all, that’s for another day.
First, consider looking at startups where you can get in on the ground floor;generally, companies with less than 10 people. These companies are unproven and won’t likely have throngs of experienced people banging down the doors.
Second, consider applying for a job in an area you have experience in, and then once you’re in, work your way into the area where you want to be. Join Sales if you know it, then work your way up.
Third, spend much, much more time and effort on your “application” than you would for a traditional application. Do everything outside the book if needed.
Lastly, try to give yourself some experience. In your spare time, design something.
You can get your dream job at a startup and get into the tech world, even if you have limited experience. You just need to expect to go above and beyond, and be flexible in where you are starting out. No one is going to go out of their way to make it easy for you.