Are you gifted?

See here. Which one would you rather be - High achiever, gifted learner or a creative thinker?

On the edge of philosophy

In conclusion; by means of analogy, we can see that our earth is but a speck of dust on the side of a grain of sand, in a sandbox that is about 20 feet diameter, with the closest sandbox being about 1/3 mile away, and our local group of galaxies would be but a collection of sandboxes in a space about the size of a small city, and that there are other cities with groups of sandboxes as well, expanding out to the whole earth, with billions of other sandboxes each representing other galaxies, each containing billions of stars.
To be frank, I find it humbling. I also find it amazing that us people, living on that little fleck of dust, can set up a telescope in our backyard and witness this grand scale universe in action, by simply magnifying the view. We also have been given the ability to attempt to comprehend the scale of it all.
I will not pursue this point further here, as there is the line between physical reality and philosophy that need not to be crossed within the context of this article.

Fundamental law

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."
- Charles Darwin

You are welcome

To all those who say Einstein never mentioned sources, I say, Take that!!!

Best commencement speech ever.

Here is a Commencement speech by Conan O'Brien to the Harvard class of 2000.

His advices include:

Never tell anyone in a roadside diner that you went to Harvard. In most situations the correct response to where did you to school is, "School? Why, I never had much in the way of book larnin' and such." Then, get in your BMW and get the hell out of there.

and

your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way.

Read it. It is good.

Our cricketing honeymoon

Our early world cup exit can yet turn out to be a blessing. The board has got an unique opportunity to put the Indian cricket in order. This disaster has given the board the mandate to do anything they want to do. They can sack the coach, they can sack the captain, they can sack the selectors. They can even do the unthinkable - sack Tendulkar.

However, all of this will be the doing of someone without any vision. None of the guys above are responsible for India's loss. It is the system which let mediocrity and past performance be enough to play for India.

The board has to take some tough decisions. And none of it has to be about sacking and dropping players. It is is about fostering excellence in domestic cricket.

There are two problems in domestic cricket:
1. It is bloated. More than 25 teams play domestic cricket.
2. Top players hardly ever play domestic cricket.

A lot of teams mean players get into a team easily. If it is easy, the motivation to do hard work is not there. Only when you know your career is on line, when not being in team means you will go hungry, will the hunger for cricket, for hard work come.

We all learn by imitation. We achieve by believing we can do it. When the top players play alongside us, we copy them. We see the hard work they put in the gym, we see how engrossed they are in their cricket, we see the sacrifices they make. If I am a budding cricketer, and I see Tendulkar working on his cricket 18 hours a day, you can bet I will put at least as much effort.

Finally, playing with top players builds confidence. If I am a bowler and I bowl out Tendulkar (OK, that is easy these days, but you know where I am going), it tells me I can really do it. It tells me he is really just another guy. We need these kind of cricketers - the tough, cocky ones.

Right now the Indian board can do nothing wrong. I just hope they do something right.

Our cricketers

Rediff has this feature going on where readers send pictures taken with celebrities. This one is plain hilarous and starts with the caption - Dhoni, Dravid get lucky

Commenters are having a field day too. Sample this:

" The Indian cricket team were very friendly and willing to pose for photographs and sign autographs'-->karen r u kidding?? there wud have been a riot in the dressing room to do the honors!!"

"Guess whose India shirt she is wearing !!! ???? "