lunatechian (lunatech-ian)

Three good tips that have made my life more productive

• Not to open my emails until I have completed at least one task in the morning. I read this tip on lifehacker.com
• No personal web surfing until at least noon. Found this tip on TheNowHabit mailing list
• Creative Observation . The advice sounds a bit corny, but I have been trying it out in small things and it works (somewhat).

The Hindu has a thought provoking article on Isarel's militarism. The most striking line in that article is in the first paragraph.

AS a Jew, I've been asked if I'm ashamed at what Israel has been doing in Lebanon. And the answer I give is that I am disgusted, I am angry, I am appalled, but, no, I am not ashamed. Why should I be? I bear no personal responsibility for this criminal activity — except, of course, in so far as I fail to take whatever action I can to stop it.

If you are on any of the mailing list or if you have had an email id for at least one year, you might have received an email titled "jai hind" or "proud to be an indian" around 15th August. The email has a bunch of questions and answers like

Q. Who is the creator of Pentium chip (needs no introduction as 90% of the today's computers run on it)?
A. Vinod Dahm
Q. Who is the founder and creator of Hotmail (Hotmail is world's No.1 web based email program)?
A. Sabeer Bhatia

and so on.

The email ends thus

Say proudly, I AM AN INDIAN. Please forward this email to all known INDIANS...............

I have always been baffled by this chest beating. As an Indian, why should I take credit for the success of Sabeer Bhatia, Azim Premji and Vinod Dahm - what contribution did I make to their success ?

I am totally unpatriotic.

Check out how to say Ya-hoooooooo in the yahoo! way . Thanks to yodel anecdotal for the link.

One of the thinking tools that I have learned from my manager is the Caf. Caf stands for "consider all factors" and it was invented by De Bono. I have started a wikipedia page on caf . Do add more to it if you know better or if you have any links further exploring this idea.