Archive for the ‘musings’ Category
Hot salaries!
Leave a CommentCheck out this list of top paying jobs in the US by Business 2.0.
Here are some of the surprises:
- The highest paying job is Senior Database Administrator, raking in a whopping $93,000 a year! (actually I remember my databases prof at Stanford mentioning something like this… so this isn’t too much of a surprise 
- Oh wait! Actually the highest paying is Anesthesiologist at $225,000! Woah!
- The highest paying engineering job is Project Engineer followed by Civil Engineer ($57,200)! (I would have expected Computer/Electrical/Bio engineering positions to pay better)
Prashant.
Gmail slow?
Comments (5)Doesn’t Gmail seem to be getting slower by the day???
‘Hot’ – ology!
Comments (1)
Haha… This one’s hilarious! Finally we have one good article that takes aim at the crappy lyrics we find in most songs these days… Check out this sarcastic commentary about America’s No.1 song today…
The best part about this article is how they ‘analyze’ the lines of the song with flowcharts and venn diagrams n all… Good stuff!
Here are some interesting lines from this ’song’…
I’m hot coz I’m fly/You ain’t coz u not!
and check this one out…
I could sell a mil sayin nothin on a track!
I haven’t heard this song yet, but I sure know how its gonna sound Haha… How do people listen to this kind of stuff?!
Prashant.
Today
Google Calendar
Today Thu, Apr 12
10:00am 4218 Presentation
05:00pm EE4401 Term Paper deadline
6:00pm EE4210 Presentation
TED Talks: Debunking myths about the ‘Third World’
This is a fantastic presentation made by Prof. Hans Rosling at the TED Talks last year. Prof Rosling is a global health visionary and a professor at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute. He is also the founder of GapMinder, a company that “unveils the beauty of statistics by converting boring numbers into enjoyable interactive animations.”
In this presentation, Prof Rosling uses these beautiful animations to disprove some myths and misconceptions about the state of the “Third World countries”. What I love about this presentation is the incredible amount of energy that this guy has. He mixes in humor, excitement and drama to capture the attention of the audience. Good stuff Check it out here…
Btw, if you are looking for some great speeches and presentations by visionaries, you should check out TED – Technology, Entertainment and Design. It’s an annual conference where thinkers and visionaries from around the world come down to share their thoughts. These are some of the TED Talks I found powerful and inspiring:
U2’s Bono on Poverty in Africa
Steven Levitt, Author (Freakonomics)
Richard Dawkins, Author (The God Delusion)
Jeff Han, Inventor of Multitouch Technology (a la iPhone)
Al Gore on Global Warming
Majora Carter on community building in the Bronx
Prashant.
Have you heard of Kanban?
I’ve heard the word before, but I never really thought too deep about its meaning. I think I first came across while I was working at Ford Motors in India and I knew that it was something to do with the Japanese way of manufacturing. I didn’t bother to explore beyond that.
Over the last few weeks, however, my interest in everything Japanese has been growing and I’m beginning to admire ‘Jap’ stuff I guess this was fueled by an application I’ve made for an internship in Japan this summer…
So, in the midst of this Jap craze, when I came across the word ‘Kanban’ in Seth Godin’s post, my curiosity jumped to life! In his blog post, Seth actually talks about how companies tend to launch ‘incomplete’ products and then blame it on deadlines or resources or other things. He stresses that it may be better to not launch a product at all, as opposed to launching it with flaws because of time and resource constraints. He advices fellow marketers to not accept to market a product that is ‘mediocre’. And that’s when he mentions Kanban.
Did you know that in a Japanese car factory, if a car part isn’t perfect, the worker refuses to install it! And the entire production line just stops! Until a better quality part is retrieved, the production just doesn’t continue. Its a matter of trading production quality over efficiency.
No wonder Japanese cars are far more reliable than American ones! This reminds of me something that happened when I was looking for a car in the US last year. Almost everyone told me to stick to Japanese cars unless I wanted my car to break down in the middle of the highway. Now, I know where that comes from!
When I read up here n there to find out more about Kanban, I came across some pretty interesting stuff… This quality control aspect of Kanban is only one part of it. The actual purpose of Kanban is to implement JIT (Just In Time) manufacturing, where the amount of inventory on hand is just enough for the manufacturing to continue without stopping. Excess inventory actually translates into greater costs and therefore the JIT system makes the manufacturing process highly cost effective and efficient. Kanban involves the use of signalling. The workers have signal boards with them which they use to communicate the levels of available inventory. The suppliers replenish the inventory as and when it gets used up. This same concept is used in modern day computerized inventory management systems as well. Its all about information and having a transparent supply chain, where each member has access to all the relevant information from other members right when they need it. In fact, I was involved in building one such ERP system while I was working at Excelics Semiconductor in Sunnyvale.
Hmm… so that’s one more thing on my list of admirable things about the Japanese
Prashant.
This is heights…
No action against Singapore swim pair
“…The two Singapore swimmers accused of smiling at the misfortune of their American colleagues at the 12th Fina World Championships are not likely to face any disciplinary action…”
What the…?!
“…Singapore Swimming Association (SSA) vice-president Oon Jin Gee said that there would be an investigation and an official apology would be issued if the boys were indeed guilty of ‘poor sportsmanship’…”
Huh?! Action against someone for bad sportsmanship?! I am truly at a loss for words right now…
Prashant.
Smart Kid :)
Found this on the Freakonomics blog…
Tagliamonte’s son lost his first tooth when he was nearly seven; the parents didn’t know how much to pay, so they asked their son. “He asked for one penny for his first tooth,” Tagliamonte writes, “but wanted to double it to two cents for the second tooth, which was also loose. … We’re now up to 64 cents for the forthcoming seventh loose tooth with the stipulation that once he receives $10.24 for the 11th tooth, all subsequent payments, including the $5,242.88 payment for No. 20, will go into his 529 college-savings account.”
Damn! How could I miss this opportunity to make thousands of dollars!
Prashant.
Courage
A lone woman shows incredible courage as she struggles against soldiers from the Israeli army. This incredible photograph, by Oded Balilty of the Associated Press, won the World Press Photo Awards 2007.Prashant.
Image Courtesy: digitaljournalist.org
Nikon Universcale: Beautiful flash animation
-Prashant.
