WORLD WAR III

Brace yourselves gentlemen, World War III is coming and you better watch out…

So I am reading this book, “Coming up for air” by George Orwell (he is my favorite author, nowadays). In the book, the protagonist continues to believe that World War II is coming and in fact it really is coming since its 1938 but he sees and believes that the majority of people do not have any idea about it. So maybe I have been influenced by the novel…and you know I have started to think that way…or maybe it really is coming!

This is the 21st century. Countries today, even the smallest, are capable of triggering a chain reaction, to cause another World War. I mean, look if one random European country just goes nuts and wages war on another one, other countries would start taking sides and then there will be BOOM! BOOM! BLAST! You get the picture? On the contrary, I believe this time war is going to initiate from Asia. Indo-Pak war flashbacks? Maybe..well lets go into the details. Let me state some recent conditions which have compelled me to think so.

Speaking of our very own country Pakistan first. Ever since Modi got elected, there have been constant swirls of Pakistan and India suddenly getting neck to neck. Well it used to happen before but it has become more frequent now. There is a constant firing of comments from arsenals of both countries foreign offices. Both countries have scandalized and made a much ado about nothing in various other sectors like films (remember Saif Ali Khan? Or Pakistani people nagging Indian films, saying those contained Anti-Pakistan rubbish and God knows what not), cricket (well it’s always been there) and hockey (I just put it here randomly). Ah, and the ever ticking time bomb; Kashmir. Honestly speaking I have no idea what’s going on, but what I am sure about is, that Kashmir makes it to headlines daily from a week or so……actually it’s just always there; Kashmir problem, with its creepy face and just smiling and saying; “Miss me?”. With both countries becoming more and more advanced in warfare (Pakistan is rumored to have the 3rd largest nuclear arsenal) it’s time for us to fret and worry.

Moving on forward, Russia. Lo! The previously supreme USSR had been out of the bigger world stage since a decade or so, but then guess what? Vladimir Putin, the ever charismatic, makes entry. I mean I really like the guy Putin, somewhat (would love to read his autobiography/biography). With the Ukraine problem in the past, it is evident that Russia no longer wants to sit back and watch. It wants to have a say in the world, and believe me when Putin wants something, he gets it xD. I am sounding like a Putin fan, gosh. Thus, Russia is all geared up.

China…the great. US financial analyst ranging from NPR’s Plant Money to WalStreet’s analyst all say that China’s economy is crashing as its stock exchange did in this summer. What many of them do not see is that, China’s stock exchange crashing doesn’t mean its economy is crashing. Although, China’s economy is slowing down but one must keep this in mind that now China is one heck of a developed country and when a country becomes bigger, progress becomes slower and more difficult to achieve. As simple as that. Getting back to the topic, China is in perhaps the best condition right now, as a nation to threat US dominance. With a couple of good allies, China can shift the flux of power to east. It has a formidable army and sufficient resources. Interestingly China has the upper hand as well in terms of technology as China is literally bustling with teen hackers, who are easily capable of hacking into many of the worlds computers/servers easily.

Then the Middle East, Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries, which have had good years in the past, thanks to their huge oil reserves. Now the oil reserves are no longer as lucrative as the past and so is the interest of Western countries decreasing…These countries might not be superpowers themselves but they have the potential to side with any other country and turn the tide.

Palestine and Israeli conflict, is constantly making world peace vulnerable and I guess not much information is required for the reader to guess that this conflict is probably one of the biggest world issue since a decade or so.

European nations….well they are those serene nations, who just go on and on and on. There are hardly traces of conflicts within them and they being a cause of WWIII seems implausible.

USA, is always prepared for a war. It has the necessary resources, military and the guts to go at war with any of the nations and hope for victory. By improving relations with Cuba, USA has reached a huge milestone and removed a strong hold of communism from the continent more or less.

Till now, we have been talking about countries and nations. Let’s talk about the faction of people who have shaped the world after 1980s. The so called terrorists. By now, terrorists no longer pose a threat like they did in the past. Though Al-Qaeda has been neutralized, ISIS has emerged as another group. However I won’t comment much on these groups and would leave their details and analysis to your own perspective J. What matters is that these people are definitely going to be the commandos if a war ever starts.

However, if war happens. I mean World War III happens as soon as I think it would; then the end is near. Warfare is now no longer limited to gunpowder or missiles. Space, underwater, aerial and God knows how many different weapons and projectiles have been made. No one would be safe. There would be destruction; massive destruction. The technology infused militaries would battle and hardly would the soldiers fight. It would be more like a battle of technology than soldiers and army. I strongly believe that the war might just last some months…because…after just a couple of superpowers use their ‘special attacks’ there would be nothing left to destroyJ.

But for now, life is normal. Enjoy it while you can, because World War III is coming; you like it or not. I would be going; I have to get some rations and make some pre-war arrangements.

Google & Amazon

Google and Amazon, arguably giants but for most people, not at all alike. I read two books, Googled by Ken Auletta and The Everything Store by Brad Stone. Since it is virtually impossible to exactly replicate what I read, nor is it possible to write a summary of the books, because it was not a story. However I felt the need to disseminate information I read in these books. So, following are some points comparing the two companies and some other random events and information.

1. Sergey Brin and Larry Page are the founders of Google while Jeff Bezos (pronounced like Bay-Zos) is the founder and CEO of Amazon. Eric Schmidt is the CEO of Google.

2. The founders of both companies were literally nerds and since childhood were destined to be trend-setters.

3. Amazon had a very humble start. Google on the other hand, of course, started slow but rapidly progressed. Amazon stayed low for many years.

4. Googles motto for many years has been “Don’t be Evil”. Google initially followed this motto in a die-hard way and stuck to it. However, regarding matters of copyrights in Google Books and even video copyrights on YouTube, it had to eventually defy its motto. Google actually wanted major TV Shows to be broadcasted on YouTube. However the TV Channels proposed against it, as then they would lose traffic. Another significant problem for Google has been how to be financially stable. One wonders how a free search engine, no matter what quality can generate income. Well the answer is straight forward. Advertisements. TV Channels and many industries simply survive on the advertisements. Google’s finance is also highly dependent on ads. However Google uses a unique advertisement system. Normally, the companies pay the media center and the media center runs advertisements. In Googles case, Google runs advertisements without payment. However, the number of clicks on the advertisement simply determine the payment the company would have to give. Privacy is the newest and I think the biggest threat to Google. People are now raising concerns on the mere fact that their online life is depicted by a cookie and their every single clicks improves the Google Database. Advertisers then use the Google Database to know which product the customer is interested in. For example, if you are searching for a washing machine on olx but then just decide to leave it there and open google, it is then highly possible that Google would direct washing machine ads to you. Page Rank, an algorithm by Larry Page, ranks the sites and in which order they are supposed to be displayed on Google. This way people only get results which are usually preferred or utilized. Another example here is that…um..ok lets say you search for ‘Mr. Holmes movie’ the results you will get would be the links that most people have visited, which in this case might be IMDB or Wikipedia. However, the backdrop is that, it is not necessary that these links which though are most visited might be the most authentic. So yeah, you search on google is based on visits not relevance. I think that’s more or less Google…Also Eric Schmidt the CEO and the founders had a lot of arguments initially when Eric was hired but now its all cool. Moreover, Google acquired YouTube, just because Eric had the hunch that YouTube would be the next big thing, which it is, as now every single show and event is broadcasted live on YouTube. The video ads generate more income that text ads. About Android, it is (well you all know) the counter part of iOS. I personally have used both…and well to be honest, iOS is damn better than Android. Actually Android is supposed to be a simplistic open source operating system, which can be modified by anyone with mediocre programming skills. This is also why more phones have Android, and also Android is kind of more flexible or rather diverse. Okay too much Google…now Amazon.

5. You know…when Google started Bezos was one of the investors in Google….and it is still unsure if he is still an investor or not.

6. Well there is not a you know serious hostility between the two giants but the biggest possible conflict was way back in 2003-4 when Amazon was doing terrible and its employees were being sucked by the newly-successful Google.

7. Bezos, has some radical measures implemented in Amazon. You work tirelessly there. There is no travel expenses, insurance, café blah blah. Google is quite the contrary. Amazon some years back made its employees work 24/7…yep with no day off. Bezos forbids the use of PowerPoint in meetings and the presenter is supposed to make a thick documentation on a word-pad, and all people who attend the meeting are supposed to read it all. Actually this documentation way was the way, Bezos learned in his High School. Amazon in its earlier years used doors as desks….yes you heard me right. Also Amazon did terrible financially till the mid-2000s. This was because of the innumerable expenses and lawsuits which Amazon has been fighting legally ever since its inception.

8. Amazon only started as a book-selling online company, but later expanded further. However Bezos is well-known for his rashness. The company surged forward at incredible speed in other categories but lost money in the end in the dot com bursts. Bezos is famous for his laugh. This is such a screeching, lively and unique laugh, that it is said that he uses this laugh, to make the situation awkward and turn the tide during meetings. That is to say he uses this as a diplomatic weapon. Bezos is radical. And the people who follow him 100% percent, not to get bonus (there is little concept of bonus in Amazon) but just because of his radical ideology attracts them are known as JeffBots. Emails from employee that require something more or are contain incomplete or unsatisfactory work get a one digit reply from the CEO: ?. Just a question mark. Also Jeff has no secretary and sees his email himself. He believes that no time should be wasted in work.

9. Type www.relentless.com and see the magic.

10. Jeff wants Amazon to become ‘the everything store’. The company has almost become it. Amazon now also sells cloud computing storage and space i.e. cloud space. It means that many free websites that operate now online, exist due to the benevolence of Amazon, which has given them space to operate, not in the physical world but the virtual one. Amazon even sells terabytes of memory space to its customer. Amazon’s main income is from Cloud Computing Centers, its Premium Customers and somewhat the Kindle. Actually there were some negotiations between Amazon and Apple regarding the music industry, however after Apple dominated the music industry through the iTunes services, Jeff knew that they had to dominate the book selling industry. For this it was necessary to make a platform which could provide books to its customers. So LAB126 was formed. Here what became later known as Kindle was made. Initially the Kindle looked horrible but promising. Inside Amazon, it was referred to as the over-grown calculator. Fortunately, Kindle was a success later on and Amazon did indeed dominate the book market. Nevertheless Amazon still had to fight many lawsuits regarding putting books online as the publishers were against it. Still Amazon did some sort of business treachery and successfully put books online. An interesting fact here that LAB126, had this name not for no reason.

Jeff wanted every single book to be on the Kindle. For this, he said he wanted ‘all books, A-Z’. Interestingly, A is the 1st letter of alphabet and Z is the 26th. That is why the place was named LAB126.

11. Amazon was called Amazon.com till a long time. Employees who would say that ‘I work in Amazon’ were literally fired. Instead they were supposed to say ‘I work in Amazon.com’.

12. Amazon never played the angelic company part like Google. From its inception, Amazon faced threats from local giants like Barnes and Noble who were a big name in the book category. Their fights spanned many years but was concluded when Barnes and Noble realized they couldn’t make an online book store as good as Amazon. Then when Amazon expanded it poked the sleeping bear of Walmart. Amazon scooped many Walmart employees and this was a further source of tension. Later on Amazon also developed hostilities with Apple and Google. Amazon as I have already mentioned was very..evil. I will quote just one example and it will suffice you. While Amazon was expanding full speed in various categories, a new website Diapers.com emerged on the horizon. This website home-delivered diapers to mom, who were too lazy to go buy diapers. Amazon also sold diapers. But the thing was that Amazon’s Diaper customers were now inclining towards Diapers.com. Bezos took an initiative. After the Diapers.com dudes refused to give over their company no matter what, the war begun. The very next day, they had to face the consequences. Amazon reduced diapers price by 50%. Customers rushed to Amazon. Bezos again asked if Diapers.com wanted to sell themselves. When they refused, Amazon was selling diapers at 70% off. After an outcry from Diapers.com, to stop, Bezos enthusiastically replied: “I would run the prices of the diapers to the floor unless you sell yourselves.” Diapers.com…still refused. Amazon was then selling free diapers xD yep free, totally free. Though all this was giving loss to Amazon, but it did eliminate their enemy as Diapers.com went bankrupt and Amazon did buy it…and then finished it…yep…after moving all the diapers to its warehouses, the site was closed and except some employees all else were fired. So this was the end of Diapers Chronicle.

13. Amazon has a theory for customer-care and product quality. Amazon’s system have an algorithm by which the prices on Amazon are the lowest than any other retailer or shop who is selling either online or offline. It means that the product on Amazon will always be cheaper. Jeff believes that low price will attract more customers and hence more net profit. However due to this many high-brand companies hesitate before placing their products online on Amazon.

14. Another thing, Google has another theory as well. Google doesn’t want its users to spend time on Google. This is their main objective, to re-direct their users as quickly as possible to their desired location. Any other site who pulls its users to stay at their site only, is automatically Googles foe, let it be Facebook or anything else.

15. Jeff, as a child wanted to go to space and even now has a space exploration company Blue, which was a secret only some knew, a decade back. His company had some launch or something but there was some accident. I don’t exactly remember what, but yes it didn’t go off as planned.

This is it….These were the kinda most important stuff and interesting things. I personally think Amazon is way cooler than Google, also Jeff Bezos has made his way into my inspirational peoples list but…it might be that Ken Auletta doesn’t write as good as Brad Stone. You never know…hope you liked it.

Behind the masks

Taking selfies, like many other bizarre acts has somehow suddenly become a common practice of every Tom and Harry. Not resisting the urge to capture a good memory, I took out my phone. While I was setting the right angle, right light background and blah blah, all of which is pertinent to have a 100K liked selfie, someone prodded me. At first, I thought it was nothing. When an ambush of prods followed, I realized this was tickling. My dad was sitting near the source of tickling, but I knew him well enough to say he wouldn’t do it. Hence in that fraction of a second, my mind had simultaneously thought about so many things and even somehow somewhat produced a reaction. Ah, what a marvelous thing, this brain is. Indeed. Back to the topic.
So I turned 45^o roughly just to see Mickey Mouse tickling me. Now I am not a toddler….or so I think so. Anyway, I knew that Mickey, had not come in person to meet me. It was an impersonation. In other words, there was a man behind the mask. My dad soon shooed him away, since my brother is apparently suffering from claustrophobia, which extends to cartoon characters costumes worn by people. While I was still trying to figure what actually had happened, my mother remarked something which fueled the train of my thoughts. My mother said, that how people…wait let me put it the right way….how people did various stuff for a living. She was sympathetic and she felt bad. I on the other hand was the driver of a totally different train of thought.
In my early childhood i.e. before 10 years, I was lucky to have this Donald Duck fellow, in the restaurant, quite near our home. I vividly remember how I was reluctant to meet him but I would still shake hands with him. I was neither hostile nor afraid. I was just confused or nervous. Simply, I had interacted with such sorts of people from my childhood.
Now the event we were talking about, occurred inside, at a temperature around 45^o C, no wind and no AC (at least it wasn’t working). Though I am no weatherman but the conditions were pretty much the same. Now…the mickey guy was wearing a pretty thick costume and a heavy head in such conditions……So much for living!? Albeit, I want to talk about another thing.
I like Batman among all superheroes. Yet I like Joker more than any other superhero or villain. Joker is usually the practical guy if you observe. I like his approach towards life and his dialogue “You know how I got these scars?” Joker is a damn optimist.  No matter, how grave is the situation, let it be a dynamite inches away, he always dons a smile. How sweet! But….but..do you know why he is an antagonist? Of course you do. It’s because deep down under the pocket of that fancy purple suit, (which God Alone knows contains what and whatnot) there is a heart beating. An evil heart. Evil from the core. Tell me something honestly. If Joker was to take a good shower, brush his hair in a nice style and remove whitening cream from his face, won’t he look better than many others. Still he would be evil from within.
I neither wish to emotionally hurt someone nor humiliate somebody. Just thinking about it. Maybe that guy under the Mickey costume was a wanted criminal! No, that’s exaggeration. But…maybe he is a really sad man. Already over with life. Drowning in debts. Starving since birth. Hearing innumerable complaints. Father of meek beings. The bearer of responsibilities. Unable to satisfy the Lord or the people. A man whose existence would be known by little. A man whose death might not even stir one soul. A man who might not even get space for his grave. A man would be only remembered after his depth, that to, for only a day. A man whose identity, is virtually and practically significant to nothing. Yet…yet, he strolls around you, tickling you, trying to spread happiness (usually) and putting a good smile to cheer others.
Like many other things, I would give none other than my own example. I think that I have a lot of worries. Homework, upcoming tests, high expectations, and blah blah. What I don’t see, are the luxuries. I get good food to eat, good clothes to wear and pure water to bath and drink. Yet, I can’t afford to put a curve other than a frown on my face. How miser am I! How cruel! How ungrateful! My worries are nothing compared to that guy in Mickey costume. He is far better than me. He can at least shrug off his countless problems and live to make his own and others life better. I….I am a pessimist. I rather spread worries.
Lesson….see the silver lining of everything. If that guy with 1000s of problems can put up a somewhat smiling face somehow, why can’t you? After all, it’s free and it might also cheer someone else. Share happiness :)

Mr Jam and His Diary entries

Nury Vittachi is a columnist and he writes for the readers digest as well. That is from where I got to know him. Anyway his entries are awfully entertaining and I must say you guys to read one of these and others at The Curious Diary of Mr. Jam

 
How Men Think?
Disaster! I’ve been doing my new calorie-counting app wrong. I got a new high score every day.  Then the wife tells me that the whole point is to get low scores. 
“So how do you win?” I asked. 
She said: “You don’t. People just do it for a few months and then give up.”
!!!!! What’s the point? Grrrrrr. 
Whoever designed this app knows NOTHING about how male brains work. 
We need bigger to mean better, which, if you think about it, makes evolutionary sense, right? 
***
It runs deep. If you ask a guy whether he would rather die of old age or be vaporized by a volley of a 100 anti-aircraft missiles covered by a thousand media channels, REAL MEN go for the big guns, no hesitation. We all have to go some time, right?
***
Size matters. On TV the other day, a guy said that Apple may become the first company to be worth a TRILLION dollars. 
My male investment banker friends (even the Samsung "fanbois") were so excited they could hardly breathe.
***
Smart educators should use the male urge to worship big-ness in schools when teaching arithmetic.
TEACHER: “Okay, students, today, we’ll start with a math test: 25 times 43.” 
(Girls start writing. Boys look bored, start hacking bits off each other.)
TEACHER: “People with Y chromosomes can calculate 25 BILLION times 43 BILLION.” 
(Boys suddenly get excited, start writing.)
***
An etymology expert told me that although there have been famous female mathematicians, the people who invent big numbers were all GUYS. The word “million” was dreamed up by a Frenchman in 1270. 
Thus you should ALWAYS say “million” with a French accent, like this: “Un meee-leee-ohnh,” assuming, of course, that you want to be revoltingly pretentious, which I know is really important to many of us.
***
Asia had big old numbers too. In ancient Buddhist texts, scholars found a number called “Number of grains of sand in the Ganges” or heng he sha, which was ten to the power of 52. (Someone must have actually counted them, probably as some sort of Bronze Age job creation scheme.)
***
Now, at the time of writing this, financial guys are a bit hyper, as the Chinese stock market’s turnover has been around ONE TRILLION YUAN A DAY.
How things have changed. Twenty five years ago, when I was a young business page reporter, there was one particular day when the Chinese stock market turnover was ZERO (also not a joke). On that date in 1990, not one share was bought, sold or swapped.
Luckily, business reporters can spout smart-sounding rubbish for hours, so I did. 
“Turnover was on the light side, holding steady at zero yuan for the first hour and the second hour and the third hour as the sidelines were hogged by the main players and indeed the minor players and even Mrs. Liu who pops in from the noodle shop next to the stock exchange…(blah, blah, blah).”
***
The next time my wife asks about my score on the calorie counting app, I'm going to revive the classic terminology: “Pretty good: today I scored heng he sha, the number of grains of sand in the river Ganges.”