Sad day.. Randy Pausch is no more…

If I can write something like this tonight, I’ll be happilly dead tomorrow morning. It has all the peace you want to make in this world…

I was reading this story in rediff this morning.

http://specials.rediff.com/news/2008/jul/02hwl.htm

I can’t say it is a nice one but I felt rather sad reading this. Here is a farmer in his late twenties having considerable land not able to make the points meet, because of no rain.

It seems rediff offered to help him by giving some money, but the farmer declined the offer but asked the readers to pray for a good monsoon. There can be two schools of thought in this.

1. Appreciating the farmer’s dignity even in tough times. Here is a man who respects his honor more than any monetary gains and I believe he is uneducated. I feel happy to be part of a system that injects this culture into your lifestream.

2. Feeling sorry for a man who wasted a opportunity that had a probability to make his life better. Instead, he asked people to pray for a better monsoon. More sadder.

I am taking the second one. Though education is a whole issue here, I think the society has to have solutions for people who have more problems to worry about than getting educated. Micro-credit is one. Muhammad Yunus has this working model for decades now, but why couldn’t it be replicated to all parts of society in this information age? I don’t think politics is going to help here as it is still mostly corrupted, but something like Acumen fund which has corporate ideologies for the betterment of the poor.

I wish India has its own, soon.

I am not sure but I think I have “Junian” syndrome.. if you don’t know what it is.. well you are part of 99.99% population who too doesn’t know.. If you have this syndrome, you will not be able to do what you wanted to do in the month of June. Thatz exactly what happened to me. I didn’t write anything in the month of June though I wanted to many a time. It is something repulsive in your mind that doesn’t allow you to write even when all the getting things done skills you have comes for your rescue. Also your mind will not allow you to browse anything that increases your temptation to write something.. blah.. blah.. blah..

I’ll stop before the blah..s make you sick.

I just wanted to say, Welcome back!!!

This video was in front page of digg couple of weeks ago (.. though the event happened a year ago).. This is a speech by a 21 year old girl at a graduation ceremony.. just WOW.

P.S. Couple of things.

1. Don’t get intimidated by the song she sings at the start (and FYI.. shez a good singer). Let it play.

2. John McCain was right there at the stage when she made the speech.

And if you want more, here is a post by her about how is it all happened.

Here is the answer.

Seth’s list on why (y)our word of mouth marketing might fail.. for most of the reason that is there in the list, I can equate myself when I write here.. there are so many titles in my to-do-list of to-write-in-my-blog that I don’t feel writing it yet..

You can find the full list here…

You can improve your vocabulary in English and in the same time you can donate rice to the poor..

Want to know how? Try it here

Here is a video that was presented by Charles Best, Founder of donorschoose.org @ Google Tech talks.

An incredible idea.. that is scalable, profitable (..in the long run) and immensely useful to the childrens of the world.

One good thing about this micro-philanthropy site is that it can be replicated to all the countries in the world and can provide a one-stop solution for all the school needs. The founders are already talking about making it open-source. John wood should find this more helpful in his endeavor.

I wish this soon gets operational in India. With the increasing economy and a growing middle-class, I believe this will let people to contribute more towards their social responsibility than otherwise since this is accessible and transparent.

What do you think?

Here is a request to unsubscribe Jacobs from a Colorado tourism board newsletter written by Honey K Balani (.. his outsourced identity).. just incredible.

Dear All,
Jacobs often receives mails from Colorado news, too often. They are definitely interesting topics. However, these topics are not suitable for “Esquire.”

Further, we do understand that you have taken a lot of initiatives working on these articles and sending it to us. We understand. Unfortunately, these articles and mails are too time consuming to be read.

Currently, these mails are not serving right purpose for both of us. Thus, we request to stop sending these mails.

We do not mean to demean your research work by this.

We hope you understand too.

Thanking you,

Honey K B

The full article can be found be in here.