“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
— Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Liar’s poker
Witty writing style. Populated by amazing characters - from real life. A very interesting subject (It’s about the life of a bond salesman on Wall Street). Overall, a very good read. Here’s the link.
I’ve been wanting to read this book since a long time, because until now, I had absolutely no information at all about the life of an investment banker which is the ‘dream’ career for an MBA. Hopefully(?) sometime soon, I’ll have to decide between a career in the IT industry and an MBA. Why finance? Well AFAIK, MBA gives you the opportunity to work in the areas of marketing, HR, strategy, systems, consulting and finance. Since, I’m not a born salesman (as some people supposedly are) and I don’t like travelling a lot, marketing is out. Jack Welch says that a good HR person should be a mix of a pastor and a parent - I’m not even remotely close to either! Plus, HR doesn’t pay very well. So that is out too. I don’t want to do strategy because I don’t want a back-office job - I need to be in a place where my performance directly affects the bottom-line and hence can be easily measured (and then adequately rewarded :D). Systems doesn’t make sense. AFAIK, in most good IT companies, an MBA is not necessary even in the top management. And in other companies, I don’t want to be some back-office flunky whose job is the first to go in times of recession. Joining consulting as a fresher implies doing a lot of grunt (read low-brain, clerical) work which sucks. Here again, one’s performance doesn’t directly affect the bottom-line. So that leaves finance. Not only does this pay the most, but also in this field, your performance directly affects the bottom-line. You are closest to it, you practically draw the line yourself! Also, I think I’ll be a good fit for it since I have strong analytical skills and ability to work hard. I sometimes also think I’ve a special money sense - I grasp money-related stuff quicker and better than most people I know. Of course, finance does have its downsides. People in finance are busier than those in any other industry. Even this is somewhat of a plus point for me. Give me a job that I enjoy and that pays well, and I won’t mind working day and night for it. Strangely (almost never does anything have everything going for it), there is also a lot of independence in this business. A 26-year-old hotshot in an investment banking company has full control over billions of dollars - he can put it wherever he pleases. Just think of all that money and power!
Of course, all this talk is moot if I don’t get into a good B-school. If I don’t get in now, I’ll just drop all aspirations of MBA (unless I hate my job or sth) and try to build a career in the IT industry. Let’s see what happens. Any advice would be most welcome.
Flight of the Phoenix
Decent acting. Nice story. Awesome background music! (especially the nomad scene one). I saw this movie without checking out the rating on imdb and thank God for that! It deserves much better than the measly 6.0 given to it. I guess that’s because it was unfairly compared to the original. And flipping through photos for the epilogue was a nice touch.
Quote from the movie:
Liddle: I think men only need one thing in life… someone to love. If you can’t give them that, then give them something to hope for. And if you can’t give them that, just give them something to do.
Links of the day:
Samorost: A cool online game You’ll atleast like the graphics.
musical resume
Do you have a dirty mind?
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
Evolution of a Programmer
Memorable Quotes
“In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. Its an aggressive, even a hostile act.” - Joan Didion.
“If you don’t fail at least 90 percent of the time, you’re not aiming high enough.” - Alan Kay
“Why would you say thighs to a man who has an interview?” - Jeff (Coupling)
Of Weird Movies…
I just finished watching two of the weirdest movies ever made - Eyes Wide Shut and Being John Malkovich.
EWS is just a porno, with zero fundas. It is the kind of movie for which people use phrases like ‘visually astounding’ and ‘hilarious and tragic at the same time’ when they actually mean that they didn’t understand the point of it and were just plain excited by some eye-candy (in this case, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise). I don’t really understand them. I felt the same way about Full Metal Jacket, another movie by the same director - Stanley Kubrick. It raised a few genuine issues but didn’t entertain. That movie didn’t even have eye-candy! A total waste of time. Watch these movies, but don’t expect to be entertained.
BJM is also pretty weird, but I like the story. I like the idea of being able to walk into someone’s head see what (s)he sees and feel what (s)he feels. Maybe one day, with the rapid strides being made in understanding how the human brain works and in integrating the human brain with computers, it would be possible to download oneself into another body. People could offer themselves or some animals on rent for downloading for short periods of time. The experience would be something truly unimaginable.
There’s something about blogging..
…that makes it most inappropriate for big news. Kitty once told me about this blogger who wrote a hundred-line post on what he had done throughout the day (tech-related) and at the end added a line, ‘I also got married today’.
I fully understand that now. After all, one’s personal blog is mostly read by friends who already know the big news. So what’s the point of telling it to them again? On the other hand, it’s only rarely that one writes something that is not plain BC (another colorful piece of IIIT lingo - it means, talking without logical purpose - a favorite pastime of most IIITians) and so big news deserves a post.
So here it is.. I got placed in Adobe. It was the first dream (actual term used by the IIIT placement policy) company to visit the campus and I was the only B.Tech to get in. So, I’m feeling extremely lucky, not to mention exhilirated. Thanks to Mrs. Padmaja, our placement officer, my teachers in IIIT who taught me and my friends who encouraged and believed in me throughout. Doston, feel free to bug me about any interview-related or non-interview-related query you might have. I also owe you all a big treat :)
