One of all my all time heroes is dead. Steve Jobs , Rest in Peace. You have defenitely made the world a better place for millions. The world of design and simplicity salutes you. And most importantly, the world has lost one of the best presenters ever.
Category: news
Spring cleaning
Except it is not spring. Wow. It is a season of CEO firings. First, it was Carol Bartz (Yahoo), and today it is Leo Apothekar (HP). Meg Whitman (ex-CEO of EBAY) replaces Leo. Read the NYTimes article here.
Michael S. Hart R.I.P
Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart’s life’s work, spanning over 40 years.
Michael Hart Obituary, Project Gutenberg page
Should I say more. This man was a pioneer. Hart, the father of ebooks and Project Gutenberg, rest in peace.
Quotable quotes from Steve Jobs
Yes, there are many many more. But a couple that I came across today morning, that are worth mentioning.
On focus groups?
“It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
“You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new.”
On creativity
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.
On how innovation really happens
“But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we’ve been thinking about a problem. It’s ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea.”
On designing products
“Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works… To design something really well, you have to get it. You have to really grok what it’s all about. It takes a passionate commitment to really thoroughly understand something, chew it up, not just quickly swallow it. Most people don’t take the time to do that.”
And ofcourse, the quote from his famous Stanford Commencement Speech –
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
Thanks are due to Inc.com, from where I found these.
US hand in Anna Hazare protest
Ok. I usually do not blog about politics (other than the occasional rant!). But this was just too amusing to ignore.
Congress hinted at an American hand behind Anna Hazare-led protests, asking why had the US spoken in favour of an agitation in the country for the first time since Independence. It urged the government to probe the angle of the hidden hand trying to destabilize the country
Source: TimesofIndia
Russell Brand on Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse is gone at 27 – Sad ! Her music will live on forever.
Russell Brand has written a beautiful blogpost in rememberance of Amy. Touching and very elucidating. Some snippets:
When you love someone who suffers from the disease of addiction you await the phone call. There will be a phone call. The sincere hope is that the call will be from the addict themselves, telling you they’ve had enough, that they’re ready to stop, ready to try something new. Of course though, you fear the other call, the sad nocturnal chime from a friend or relative telling you it’s too late, she’s gone.
Frustratingly it’s not a call you can ever make it must be received. It is impossible to intervene.
…..
Entering the space I saw Amy on stage with Weller and his band; and then the awe. The awe that envelops when witnessing a genius. From her oddly dainty presence that voice, a voice that seemed not to come from her but from somewhere beyond even Billie and Ella, from the font of all greatness. A voice that was filled with such power and pain that it was at once entirely human yet laced with the divine. My ears, my mouth, my heart and mind all instantly opened. Winehouse. Winehouse? Winehouse!
Read the full post here.
(Found via kottke)
Mumbai blasts (again!)
Felt very sad when I read the news night before last (online) about another series of blasts in Mumbai.
Felt sadder when I read this piece of news in BBC –
“Attacks of this magnitude do not deter foreign investors or have any lasting economic impact,” said Seema Desai, an analyst with the New York-based risk consultant Eurasia Group. “Most investors know that terror attacks can and do happen but these do not impact the functioning of the economy.”
While I do agree with the practicality of the statement – and maybe the statement was backed by data – I did feel an inner pain. Have we started accepting this as normal ? This is not normal. *Sigh* Never had much faith in the Congress Govt to bring in any change to this situation. And this just reinforced it.
Mumbaikars – our hearts are with you. Be strong and have hope. Some day there will be a government, which do will a massive pest control exercise of this country and get rid of all these fundamentalists (be it of any caste/creed/religion) who believe in casting violence on innocent people.
Ted Stevens, Senator – R.I.P
Ted Stevens, Senator, Alaska, died in a plane crash a few days ago. How would I know who Ted Stevens was? I do not follow US politics. Ted Stevens became a celebrity some time back, when he spoke about the net neutrality debate in the Senate/Congress (do not know which one – now you know, how ignorant, I am of US politics). The Senator is a total newbie with respect to Computers, much less the internet. He made waves across the geek community, by referring to the “Internets” to be a system of tubes. And how the tubes can get clogged sometimes, and delaying his delivery of emails.
A snippet from the transcription of the speech:
Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got…an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday. I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
[…] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It’s not a big truck. It’s a series of tubes. And if you don’t understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it’s going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.[4]
More links:
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Series_of_tubes
BoingBoing: http://boingboing.net/2006/07/02/sen-stevens-hilariou.html
Anyways, Ted Stevens, may you rest in peace, where the clogged tubes of the Internets wont disturb you.
US finds mineral deposits in Afghanistan
The NewYork Times has an article which says that the US has discovered huge amounts of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Nice try. And we all have to believe that, only now that the US found it. I am reminded of the Avatar movie. the US has (atleast till now) invaded and fought war only in countries, where it has had some amount of financial interests (the various middle east wars). It has always claimed that, the wars have been fought for installing peace in these areas. And then what? Establish American companies there and reap the financial benefits. Very ironical is the fact that, the movie Avatar also had the exact same theme – precious mineral contents. I am pretty sure that the US would have found all of this using sophisticated remote sensing satellite technologies.
An excerpt:
U.S. Discovers Nearly $1 Trillion in Afghan Mineral Deposits
The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in
untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any
previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter
the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself,
according to senior American government officials.The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of
iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals
like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that
are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could
eventually be transformed into one of the most important
mining centers in the world, the United States officials
believe.
Read the NYTimes article here.
HP buys Palm
HP is buying the beleaguered smart phone manufacturer Palm for $1.2 billion. Palm has been struggling to make ends meet in recent times. It approached HTC and a few other companies, who refused to buy them. At one point in time, there were only 2 smart phones in the world – Palm and the Blackberry. With some many variants in the market, now it is Apple and BlackBerry which dominate it, closely followed by HTC. Lets see if Palm re-invents itself within HP, and rises from the ashes. HP’s IPAQ has been suffering sales for a longer time now. Would the Palm portfolio increase HP’s interests in smartphones.
Read the full article in BusinessWeek here.
Image courtesy: amazon.co.uk