Hey, It's Weekend Here!

Three posts for your weekend. Hope you will like!

1. You will agree that we are all politician to certain degree. But, if you want to be a successful politician and particularly if you are a women you can run to IIM Bangalore. IIM-Bangalore offers course to make women ‘professional politicians'. Read on ...

2. If you are planning to do weekend shopping then before you headout check this out. My Father's Fashion Tips

3. Do you know why everything looks so amazing and nobody is happy? Here you go - hilerious Louis CK


Enjoy the weekend!

To Understand Startups Understand Growth

Morning view of mighty Brahmaputra from IIT Guwahati. Taken by Gunjan

If you want to understand startups, understand growth  - this the key. I missed sharing this brilliant article on understanding startups over the weekend. I was also double minded - it's not really a 5 mins read. If it is more than 2000 words - people will not read - this is what my daughter tells. Assuming an average person reads about 300 words per min this is about 15 min read. But, nonetheless, I couldn't stop sharing this - I know some of you would like this.

A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth. Read on & put your comments ...

Byte, Kilobyte ... Petabytes

While trying to explain storage in computer (byte, kilobyte, gigabyte etc) to my 4th grader son, Mon, yesterday, I found this interesting detailing of byte, kilobytes .... While terabytes is vary large amount of data - 10 terabytes is the printed collection of the US Library of Congress & today all PC are shipped with terabytes of hard disc. So, most of us have terabytes of storage at home and we consume this very rapidly. Interestingly, Walmart took 40 years to get their data warehouse at 400 terabytes. Facebook probably generates that every 4 days.

• Bytes(8 bits)

  • 0.1 bytes: A binary decision
  • 1 byte: A single character
  • 10 bytes: A single word
  • 100 bytes: A telegram OR A punched card

• Kilobyte (1000 bytes)

  • 1 Kilobyte: A very short story
  • 2 Kilobytes: A Typewritten page
  • 10 Kilobytes: An encyclopaedic page OR A deck of punched cards
  • 50 Kilobytes: A compressed document image page
  • 100 Kilobytes: A low-resolution photograph
  • 200 Kilobytes: A box of punched cards
  • 500 Kilobytes: A very heavy box of punched cards

• Megabyte (1 000 000 bytes)

  • 1 Megabyte: A small novel OR A 3.5 inch floppy disk
  • 2 Megabytes: A high resolution photograph
  • 5 Megabytes: The complete works of Shakespeare OR 30 seconds of TV-quality video
  • 10 Megabytes: A minute of high-fidelity sound OR A digital chest X-ray
  • 20 Megabytes: A box of floppy disks
  • 50 Megabytes: A digital mammogram
  • 100 Megabytes: 1 meter of shelved books OR A two-volume encyclopaedic book
  • 200 Megabytes: A reel of 9-track tape OR An IBM 3480 cartridge tape
  • 500 Megabytes: A CD-ROM OR The hard disk of a PC 

• Gigabyte (1 000 000 000 bytes)

  • 1 Gigabyte: A pickup truck filled with paper OR A symphony in high-fidelity sound OR A movie at TV quality
  • 2 Gigabytes: 20 meters of shelved books OR A stack of 9-track tapes
  • 5 Gigabytes: An 8mm Exabyte tape
  • 10 Gigabytes:
  • 20 Gigabytes: A good collection of the works of Beethoven OR 5 Exabyte tapes OR A VHS tape used for digital data
  • 50 Gigabytes: A floor of books OR Hundreds of 9-track tapes
  • 100 Gigabytes: A floor of academic journals OR A large ID-1 digital tape
  • 200 Gigabytes: 50 Exabyte tapes

• Terabyte (1 000 000 000 000 bytes)

  • 1 Terabyte: An automated tape robot OR All the X-ray films in a large technological hospital OR 50000 trees made into paper and printed OR Daily rate of EOS data (1998)
  • 2 Terabytes: An academic research library OR A cabinet full of Exabyte tapes
  • 10 Terabytes: The printed collection of the US Library of Congress
  • 50 Terabytes: The contents of a large Mass Storage System

• Petabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

  • 1 Petabyte: 5 years of EOS data (at 46 mbps)
  • 2 Petabytes: All US academic research libraries
  • 20 Petabytes: Production of hard-disk drives in 1995
  • 200 Petabytes: All printed material OR Production of digital magnetic tape in 1995

• Exabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

  • 5 Exabytes: All words ever spoken by human beings.

• Zettabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

• Yottabyte (1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 bytes)

Welcome to 2035...the Age of Surprise

We are definitely moving towards the age of surprise. See this video from  U.S. Air Force Center for Strategy and Technology. Singularity is not far.

... collective intelligence of humanity drives innovation

 in every direction while enabling new threats from super-empowered individuals with new domains, interconnecting faster than ever before. 

Unlimited combinations create unforeseen consequences...
get ready for the Age of Surprise.

It's Weekend Again

It's Saturday afternoon here! I am enjoying  cocktail of Backstreet Boys, Rabin Goswami along with Bhupen Hazarika and Carly Jespen and thought of sharing few interesting post that can burn your weekend fat.

1. Big data is invading everywhere with variety, velocity and volume. Soccer Embraces Big Data to Quantify the Beautiful Game. Adidas' miCoach data tracker can be embedded in players uniforms to collect and analyse real time data about the player when he/ she is in the field. 

We’ve always had lies, damned lies and statistics,” said Timbers assistant coach Amos Magee. “For example, just because a guy is covering a lot of ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s smart running or that he’s in the right place at the right time. That’s a statistic that needs to come with experience. So some of these measurements are going to be useful, but some aren’t. We’ll just have to see which ones fill a void.”
 
In that capacity, miCoach readings will fit right in with the rest of soccer’s statistics. There’s another school of thought, however, that presents an even warier eye.

“Soccer is so much art, and art is impossible to measure, like music or dance or paintings,” said Hackworth. “The beauty of our sport is that there are so many creative, imaginative and skillful moments, and you’ll never be able to truly quantify that.”

Read on ...  

p.s. In case you are interested to get a quick bite of what is Big Data -> here it is!
 
2. This one is specifically for Rabin, Dhruba, Ratul, Arup da,  Mrinal .. The Benefits of Middle-Age Fitness
You may not live longer because of this but will live better. 

Read on ...  Let me know how it is progressing!

3. Recently, I met 50 just passed out engineering graduates. I experienced the validation of this post after spending one hour with them. Eight Products the Facebook Generation Will Not Buy

1. email
2. Beer
3. News paper
4. Landline phone