Getting hits from...

I saw my Blogpatrol Keywords report and this is what I saw:
I get damn ass people searching for rape scenes? Holy whatever! And all of them were from MSN.

A bit about creativity

Creativity is our ability to get new,good ideas. A cretive person can think out great ideas, out of the blue even.
In this expanding world, where populations grow, businesses expand, networks enlarge, competition intensifies. Life is also becoming more mechanical. As a result, a creative person tends to stand out. A creative person can get a meme or idea that others find interesting or amusing or useful. Those people can't think of great ideas easily, creativity hindered. There actually is an increasing need for creativity in this world.
People usually associate creativity to the arts. But creativity isn't limited to art. Creativity is useful and needed everywhere. Einstein's Theory of Relativity was an upshot of good creativity. So are the thousands of inventions and theories. Creativity helps in solving problems too.You need to be creative to crack good jokes,too.
In this large world, there are thousands of people trying to achieve the same thing. The creative person is more conspicuous than the rest of the people, who may use standard methods to reach their goals. The creative person can find ways that are not immediately obvious to less innovative people.
Creative people tend to be original, that's what creativity is about. And originality is craved for. Everybody wants to be special and different.
Let's not let the onslaught of machines hinder our innovativeness, but rather use those tools to help ourselves become better.

Got my SAT II scores

Yay, I got a perfect score on SAT II!
It's the SAT I English related stuff I'm worried about.

Cricket mania

There's a cricket match here in Bangalore on 19th(?) and the local news channel had footage of the rush for the tickets. The tickets are already sold out.

I hate cricket. The only sports I actually like are tennis, golf, swimming, diving, marathons and martial arts. I'm not a sports type at all, actually. But cricket I despise. I actually liked and played cricket when I was young. But now I hate it.

The bowler slowly walks up to his starting point and he runs...then he releases his well-planned ball...batsmen hits, connects...the ball stops a few yards in front of the batsman, he had defended.

The above seems to happen forever.You could fall asleep during a match and not have missed a thing. The game is lethargic. The fielders just stand there for the best part and run back and forth hoping for the ball to come to them(or not to come to them), simple harmonic motion. Maybe because it's such a sedentary game, it's no wonder it has to go on for a day. Otherwise, nobody would get any exercise. The crowds shout all the time, even when the players are running, the commentators are shouting over the roar, rather confusing at times.

Actually I found this and it sums up everything I want to say. So I'll save my time.

Can't count on luck and shit

One thing that astounds me is that a lot of people firmly believe that successful people are 'great' and that they are lucky. They think everyone can't become rich and famous. And that those great people are exceptions. Bleh.

Actually those 'great' people are exceptions. They believe in diligence and work to achieve their goal. They don't give up and say they aren't lucky. They DO. The importance of assiduity is enormously under-emphasized.

Everyone talks about Sania Mirza as if she is some sensation. They talk about her matches, her T-shirts, her religion, and all the blah. The emphasis is shifted towards her other traits. Everybody naturally thinks she is successful because she is good and that she has the 'skill'. Damn the media. Nobody talks about her many hours of daily training and how much effort she has to put in. At the most, there's a phrase for dramatic purposes such as 'against all odds' or so.

One of my friends has a telecommunications business. When I ask him why they don't price aggressively, advertise and attack the market, he says,"It's not so easy, man. You need to have the right place, the right moment and it's all luck".

Luck is just chance. It can happen to anyone. Expecting luck is an unholy waste of time. If you get lucky, then be happen and move on. You can't get sucked into it and waste your time. Luck does play a role. But Apple wasn't lucky with the iPod(IMO). I believe luck is just an 'add-on' factor, not a major one.

So, people, it's time to our butts moving for whatever we want, because as long as it's even obscurely possible, it's possible.

I don't wanna become better...?

A lot of people(atleast those who I know) , feel that self-help books aren't 'right'. They said that they don't believe in self-help books when I told them about GTD. There was a time when I didn't believe them either, or rather didn't know much about them. But now I firmly believe that personality, time management, and everything else about oneself are skills and can be developed just like all other skills. By practice and knowledge.

I don't know what the opinion actally is, but maybe people who don't 'believe' in self-help books feel that those skills can't be learnt out of books. Then may I ask why laboratory experiments in college are elaborated in books? And why there are tons of do-it-yourself books? My point is that there is absolutely nothing wrong in reading self-help books and it is in no way nerd-ish/geek-ish.

Other stuff
Rejected iPod Engravings
Distributed Proofreading - If you want to proofread for gutenberg
Book Archive-Tons of books

Information Overload

Today's quote in school was:"In this age, information is growing faster than our wisdom"(or something like that).

People are being overwhelmed with information: the television, countless books, and the ever-expanding web. People read from over 150 feeds, get number of emails and what-not. The common man has access to a lot more information that he used to. The problem is one doesn't know how to use it. One gets overwhelmed.

Which book shall I read? That new Jack Higgins, or a nice Tolkien?

I need some info on Singapore, so I'll just google Singapore tourism.
So, I go and do that and click the first link and get a link there and another one and another one, until I end up reading an article about the world's best airports. What a fuck.

The problem with a lot of information is that you could get lost. It's like sailing in an ocean, you go in a certain distance and you lose sight of land. Whereas, if you travel in a lake, you can always see the end, or atleast you will reach land much sooner. You need something for the ocean, a 'compass', which we should use in an ocean. Sadly, the compass is small and people often forget to keep it, or they don't know they should, so they get lost in the ocean. The compass is your plan.

Information is a tool, you need to use it like one. You can't use a screwdriver for hammering nails. You just need one tool for nails, a hammer. You can keep a screwdriver with you when you need to be hammering nails, just so you look professional, but it is a waste of time and energy, both much more valuable resources. You need to get the information you need, and use it proper, and just junk the useless information. You can try using the screwdriver to drive a nail, but waste your damn time, not a shit cares. You need to learn to use your information correctly.
I honestly think everybody can cut on Internet time. Internet is, IMO, a web. You get caught doing useless things. By cutting on time, you will be forcing yourself with an increase in productivity. You could increase your internet time gradually later.

If youare one of those who finds themselves doing unimportant things, you have a problem. Try working with limited information. You'll automatically find yourself sucking all the juice from it.

When we browse the web, we need to be focussed on what we want. But sometimes we just browse random stuff. In times like those, time limits is the way to go. And then, some people subscribe to newsletters, feeds and stuff just because it's there. Do you really need that stuff?

Having a large amount of information isn't inherently bad. The problem is not using it efficiently.

On IQ

Even taken one of those 'free' IQ tests? Chances are it was absolute bullshit. I had taken one of those IQ test a while back and it said my IQ score was 165, which is impossible. My IQ can't possibly have been over 140.

I did believe though. Until two other people I know took the test and got the same score. Hmm...what are the chances? They were both smarter than me... sadly, I don't remember the website, so I couldn't check if they just threw a score at one.

I don't think IQ tests are that accurate. They do a good job of measuring one's intellectual abilities, but it doesn't measure a person as a human being. But then again, that's why it's not called the awesomeness quotient or something. And besides it doesn't measure your ability to use the intelligence(whether you are a lazy butt or not).

I think IQ tests can be used very efficiently if they are used in school and the kids are trained based on their weaknesses, using data from the tests. If one is weak in visual abilities, then train one more on that. And so on. They don't/shouldn't use these as exams, just make it a casual test.

IQ tests, are best I think to use as a scale for intelligence, and not for using it to judge anything else about a person. I've seen people with high IQ but are total jerks.

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Darn, I'm not getting any good ideas on what to write about.

SAT vs JEE/AIEEE

The SAT is The USA's standardized college admissions test. The JEE and AIEEE are just two of India's admissions tests.

The SATs are much more 'standard' tests than the JEE. For one thing, there is no 'rank' given to the a person taking the SAT. The scores in the SAT are 'caliburated' to match SAT scores of other tests. That really is neat. The JEE, on the other hand, and all other competitive exams in India are based on ranking systems. Well, the percentile is also given in the SATs, but that is a sideshow. If you get a 780/800, you are good. You are not the 100th best, you are good.

The JEE's don't measure anything, except the student's performance in the test. So do the SATs. They do the same thing. But one is hard, the other isn't. The SATs test knowledge way below what the students actually know. It tests their basics. The JEE tests from stuff that aren't even taught in high school. It tests the basics too, but the questions are anything but basic. If the JEE were simpler, and all other tests were simpler, life could have been much more lively.

One thing that the JEE lacks is that it lacks verbal testing. The students aren't testing on the verbal skills, which requires a different side of the brain(right-side?) than that demanded for learning math and physics, and a different approach altogether. But maybe they didn't do that because there are some hundred languages in India.

The beautiful thing about the SAT is that you can take it as many times as they have it. There are some 6-9 SATs a year and you can take one or all and the largest score is your proper score. You can take the SATs any time you want. Take it again, if you screw up. That reduces stress by a large amount.

The JEE's have had a revamp for next year(2006), but they need to cut the toughness. It's already so tough that the best get only 40-60% marks. That doesn't look very motivating to me.

...*sigh*...

A Life-saver, I hope: GTD

I was getting desperate. I had literally done nothing 5 weeks of holidays. I was procrastinating again yesterday when I bumped into 43folders. I was bored, so I loafed 'round the site. Then read about a book: 'Getting Things Done' by David Allen. So, I looked into it. I unearthed a whole cult!

The book talks about a system of work management, commonly called GTD, for Getting Things Done. I got(ahem) the book. It's very good. The ideas are quite simple. The techniques look promising. The system is mainly making 'lists' and keeping all plans out of your mind. The systems focuses on Actions rather than Time. I've not read the book completely. Only 1/2 way through. But I'm getting very excited.

The thing about GTD that appeals to me is that it's a completely documented tool. The whole method is flexible and extendable. Like Open Source... It's not that other techniques aren't. But there's no solid framework. In GTD, there's a 'workflow' thing. You know exactly what to do. Then there's hacks and stuff(lifehack, lifehacker, hPDA).

Right now, I'm focussing on getting a working system up as fast as possible, probably within a few hours from now. Then I'll keep bettering myself.

I've got the SAT this Saturday, and I don't know a thing. :(

Less is More

More and more does is seem to me that less is more.

If you were to work for only 1 hour a day, you would work at a very high efficiency. You would try to get everything done. If you had the whole day, you would probably laze away and take your time.

People want everything on their mobile devices. Convergence proves that less is more. They want internet, email, camera, music, video, and a load of other things on one device.

Look at some of the best computer games. They're either just point and shoot or accelerate and turn. Not some complex strategy thing, with hell a load of different points and items. Again, more is less.

I had read about how research had shown that organizations with large numbers of members had much lesser volunteers for things. Apparently, everyone thinks that someone else will volunteer. The same is the case with forums. Bigger forums get less replies than small to medium sized forums.

I have noticed that when there are plates and plates of food, it sometimes makes me sick. It's too much. I can't eat all that. Maybe in the beginning it looks good, but it definitely doesn't after a while. Maybe you are different.

People don't wear highly embroidered, frilly, complicated clothes. And females wear 'less' clothes more and more. That's got to be more!

People like less because it also means less maintenance, less hassle and therefore more productivity. Nobody wants to make a mess of things. Not everyone are experts at organization. Not everybody like complicated environments.

Less is more, quite a lot of times.