A Girl You Should Date

Kannu

I may have sent this to you earlier. But no worries. This is worth reiterating. Again and again. 

You will have loads of girls. As you should. Look around. Know various people. Check them out. Experiment. Spread your wings. You will have your own criteria to select girls. But who do you open up to? Who do you cuddle up in front of a fire and share your thoughts and dreams of winning the world? 

One sure fire way to see if she reads. A girl that reads (and I mean reading dead tree books or e books). I didn't mean magazines or TV guide only. Girls who read voraciously are fascinating creatures son. 

They are usually quieter. They are difficult to spot because they aren't found in noisy places. They need to be found very carefully. You have to walk gently in the undergrowth. Part the leaves carefully and quietly. Peek around the tree trunks slowly. Don't startle her. Pick a good time and then say a hi. 

They are good people to be around. They are full of ideas and full of alternative realities. You can be silly with them and you can be Serious with them. They will never be clingy because they are with their books. You are a fellow traveller. They are difficult to get but the rewards are so much worth it. 

It's a good way to know who is better. And remember one thing, son, they will also be checking you out so always have a book to hand :)

Love

Baba

869
http://nonamerah.wordpress.com/2011/10/03/869/?refid=12

---

Oct 03 2011

By nonamerah

A Girl You Should Date

Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

How to Get a Nuclear Bomb

Dear kannu

A very good article on how to get a nuclear bomb. There have been fictional accounts of how people made a nuclear bomb in their backyard but its not even that difficult. Just get some plutonium, grind it up and sprinkle the stuff out of the car while you are travelling in New York or London. And viola, one has achieved what the terrorists want, terror and hitting the enemy (us) when and where we don't expect it. 

So what do you do when the situation is too complex? Or too big? It could be a huge company or a huge project or huge macroeconomic situation. Keep a handle on the detail son, size shouldn't make a difference to keeping an eye on the detail. 

Second, keep things simple. As much as possible. More complexity means more dimensions and it will cause issues managing and fixing the inevitable problems. So reduce the complexity down. 

Third, always keep an eye out on the stupidity factor. There's always that stupidity angle. In my experience there is always some kind of stupidity involved. 

Finally, always use problems. As the man said, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. While people may be running around thinking the sky is falling down, stay cool. Use the problem to solve something else, short something etc etc.  

love

Baba

How to Get a Nuclear Bomb [longform.org]
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2006/12/how-to-get-a-nuclear-bomb/5402/

---

Hiroshima was destroyed in a flash by a bomb dropped from a propeller-driven B-29 of the U.S. Army Air Force, on the warm morning of Monday, August 6, 1945. The bomb was not chemical, as bombs until then had been, but rather atomic, designed to release the energies Einstein described. It was a simple cannon-type device of the sort that today any number of people could build in a garage. It fell nose-down for forty-three seconds, and for maximum effect never hit the ground. One thousand nine hundred feet above the city the bomb fired a lump of highly enriched uranium down a steel tube into a receiving lump of the same refined material, creating a combined uranium mass of 133 pounds. In relation to its surface area, that mass was more than enough to achieve “criticality” and allow for an uncontrollable chain of fission reactions, during which neutrons collided with uranium nuclei, releasing further neutrons in a blossoming process of self-destruction. The reactions could be sustained for just a millisecond, and they fully exploited less than two pounds of the uranium before the resulting heat forced a halt to the process through expansion. Uranium is the heaviest element on earth, almost twice as heavy as lead, and two pounds of it amounts to only about three tablespoonfuls. Nonetheless, the explosion over Hiroshima yielded a force equivalent to 15,000 tons (fifteen kilotons) of TNT, achieved temperatures higher than the sun’s, and emitted light-speed pulses of dangerous radiation. More than 150,000 people died.

A Bit of Sarbanes-Oxley for Universities, Please

This is a very interesting and important view on the independence of trustees of a University Board. I quote:

The impulse to impose Sarbanes-Oxley on universities is tempting.  Indeed, formal legal mandates on conflicts of interest and the other attributes of good governance might be even more appropriate for universities than for public corporations, as universities lack many of the safeguards of good governance, such as the ability to measure performance through profitability and engaged  shareholders with incentives to monitor performance.

It has traditionally has been assumed that universities, as ostensibly charitable organizations, would be run with an eye on the public good, thus formal restraints on self-dealing, conflicts of interest, and rules that apply to private corporations would not  be necessary.  Today, however, universities are big businesses riven with self-interest.  And there is little evidence that charitable purpose plays any role in their behavior.  University president's salaries routinely reach into the seven figures--Dartmouth's recent president, for example, earned over one million dollars a year and demanded millions of dollars of renovations to the college president's house and access to a private jet as part of his compensation package, even while laying off dozens of staff members and issuing hundreds of millions of dollars in debt (to be financed by future generations of students and parents) to close a massive budget deficit caused when the endowment cratered in the wake of the financial crisis.

Go read the full article, its very interesting..I fully concur with this view, being in this situation, I am quite concerned in general about the lack of governance that universities have, specially on this side of the pond. Do trustees or board members really hold university management to account? Very doubtful, when was the last time you heard any kind of debate in the newspaper between board members and management in universities as one would frequently hear in the corporate world?

And dont give me that guff about board members not knowing about academics or university policies / procedures, that’s insulting and basically tells me that your cranial end is interposed in your anterior end.

What would happen if we removed the silent letters?

silenc – visualization from Kenneth Aleksander Robertsen on Vimeo.

A nice internship letter

This was a nice letter. I quote

From: BLOCKED
Sent: Monday, January 14, 2013 1:14PM
To: BLOCKED
Subject: Summer Internship

Dear BLOCKED

My name is (BLOCKED) and I am an undergraduate finance student at (BLOCKED). I met you the summer before last at Smith & Wollensky’s in New York when I was touring the east coast with my uncle, (BLOCKED). I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to talk with me that night.

I am writing to inquire about a possible summer internship in your office. I am aware it is highly unusual for undergraduates from average universities like (BLOCKED) to intern at (BLOCKED), but nevertheless I was hoping you might make an exception. I am extremely interested in investment banking and would love nothing more than to learn under your tutelage. I have no qualms about fetching coffee, shining shoes or picking up laundry, and will work for next to nothing. In all honesty, I just want to be around professionals in the industry and gain as much knowledge as I can.

I won’t waste your time inflating my credentials, throwing around exaggerated job titles, or feeding you a line of crapp (sic) about how my past experiences and skill set align perfectly for an investment banking internship. The truth is I have no unbelievably special skills or genius eccentricities, but I do have a near perfect GPA and will work hard for you. I’ve interned for Merrill Lynch in the Wealth Management Division and taken an investment banking class at (BLOCKED), for whatever that is worth.

I am currently awaiting admission results for (BLOCKED) Masters of Science in Accountancy program, which I would begin this fall if admitted. I am also planning on attending law school after my master’s program, which we spoke about in New York. I apologize for the blunt nature of my letter, but I hope you seriously consider taking me under your wing this summer. I have attached my resume for your review. Feel free to call me at (BLOCKED) or email at (BLOCKED). Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

BLOCKED.

Interesting, eh?