Be your own mentor!

While it may sound absurd to be your own mentor, that is exactly what Dennis Matthies, a lecturer at Stanford's Center for Teaching and Learning, says is effective in the current time and age. Read the article at -
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/03/mentor.html?partner=rss

I tend to agree that self initiated learning and vicariously gaining from others experiences is certainly more effective than the old school thought of learning through a formal mentoring process.

What do you think?

What is this blog all about?

Mumbai Metro Rail & Commuter Train Network

Click on the image to see an enlarged version.

Over 6 million commuters use Mumbai's urban rail network daily. 4700 passengers (it is built for a maximum capacity of 1700 pasengers) travel in every 9 train car rake during peak hours. Unfortnately the over-crowding also causes many accidents, leading to 3500 deaths every year. Efforts to upgrade the train network and build newer lines is actively being pursued offlate.

A latest news item talks about the Indian Prime Minister laying the foundation for Mumbai's new metro rail venture.

The mumbai map was obtained from http://urbanrail.net/as/mumb/mumbai.htm
The site urbanrail.net provides information on urban rail transport systems around the world.

Some interesting sites about the mumbai urban rail network:
http://www.geocities.com/mumbairail/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_suburban_railway
http://www.answers.com/topic/mumbai-suburban-railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumbai_Metro

Global Warming

Is "global warming" real? Certainly, the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans has increased in the last few decades.

Wikipedia has a good description of "global warming" and concepts associated with it. (The image on the left is also from Wikipedia)

Now is it CO2 that is causing it? Don't know for sure. However, Al Gore's movie has generated a lot of excitement for both believers and opposers of the "CO2 causing global warming" theory.

Al Gore in his movie and book - "An inconvenient Truth" presents CO2 and other green house gases to be the primary cause of the climatic changes and warns people that things will get much worse if we don't start taking conscious steps to stop the accumulation of CO2. Read more on http://www.climatecrisis.net/.

On the contrary, some scientists think there is little evidence that CO2 is really causing the climate change. Canada Free Press has an interesting summary of what these scientists are saying. Read more at http://www.canadafreepress.com/2006/harris061206.htm.

What do you think?

corporate bullshit!

Check this new book "The Dictionary of Corporate Bullshit" out. A good reference to all the nonsensical jargon that floats around in the corporate world.

If looking at this dictionary is rather pedantic and boring, you could engage in some real time bullshit generation at any of the following sites:

Corporate Bullshit Generator - http://members.aol.com/matt999h/bullshit.htm
Bullshit Baffles Brains (BBB) - http://www.pentaclethevbs.com/compilation_4.htm
Dilbert Gobbledygook generator - http://www.strauss.za.com/sla/newspeak.html
DJ Broadsword's Buzzword Bullshit Generator - http://www.virtuadance.co.uk/useless/useless4.html

Once you have enjoyed and mastered the art of bullshit generation it is time for new roles and jobs. Create newer and bullshit enriched job titles by leveraging the resource at
http://www.bullshitjob.com/titles.html

Net Neutrality

If you are not familiar with the concept read up the wikipedia article on Network Neutrality at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality . If you know about it read on........

So the fight is about network neutrality promoting welfare by providing the same underlying unbiased network infrastructure to competing content, applications and services versus the neutrality damaging the differentiating factors and competitive advantage for network providers. This seems like a paradox because both adopting net neutrality and rejecting it seems to be affecting fair competition.

I support the cause for network neutrality because I believe it preserves the freedom of choice for the customers and creates a level playing ground for all participants. However, it also worries me that the network providing business is then relegated to a commoditized offering. Commoditization of business can affect quality of service as price pressures increase with providers trying to grab larger market shares with similar or same set of offerings. Commoditization provides little enthusiasm for providers to expand or maintain their infrastructure, especially if large capital investment is required for these. Decreasing margins will also drive shareholder and market support away from these providers and render their business unviable in the long run.

Thus, if we don't have any incentives for the privately owned network providers or have government participation in this area, the way we have in our road and ports infrastructure we would be headed towards trouble anyway. We might be able to protect the freedom of choice but there may not be much left to exercise this choice.