Am I a pessimist or an optimist..

With everything going on I can't stop thinking of this Winston Churchill's quote:

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty"

Well said......

How we make decisions......one interesting perspective

And now on something completely different.   Interesting RadioLab podcast on Choice, for your weekend run.....

The Bank Job is a Must See

This is a fascinating and most controversial story about a true-life bank robbery that happened in Baker Street, London, in 1971. The money and valuables stolen were never recovered and story was prevented from ever being told because of a D-Notice government gagging order, allegedly to protect a prominent member of the British Royal Family.

Robert Rowlands, an amateur radio operator, recorded the actual conversations between the bank robbers! Here is the real audio recording of the bank robbers talking during the robbery. You can hear the lookout chap complaining about the weather and wanting to go home in the middle of the robbery!!

Read more about the robbery here.

Facebook, Beacon and Privacy

I just bought a movie ticket on Fandango.com and instantly saw a "profile story" in my Facebook.com account. Fandango did NOT ask me if I want this event to be sent to Facebook. At first, I got freaked out a bit because I wasn't sure what data Fandango has sent to Facebook.  Is my credit card number safe?, etc.. Later I found out that Facebook allows me to explicitly decide, if I want the profile story be added to my News Feed (OK!, not too bad) and data that Fandango sent to Facebook is really not a big deal (just the movie name). Still, I am not comfortable trusting Facebook to get "profile stories" from the any web site that I interact with and I certainly would have appreciated if Fandango had asked me before telling Facebook about my purchase....Privacy continues to be a big challenge for Facebook.....On this occassion, I am not happy!

Love my new Roland V-Drums

They are super cool.  I found playing drums as good stress reliever and it helps with better body coordination.  Nice engineering work is done on every component of this set. Each piece is thoughtfullly made and connected to the rest of the set. Mesh-head tom and snare pad give it a real playing feel.  However, the set still does not sound as good as an acoustic ones. Ruby puts on a very funny look when I play with my headphones on.  She starts dancing around the drum set wondering what the heck I am doing.  I have to get my camera out and make a funny YouTube video of her in that state.

Has the customer acquisition cost dropped or is my credit value in shambles

Until yesterday, it has never been that easy to cancel a credit card. After a 10min quibble with my credit card company over an unjust and petty late fee(they agreed that they received the payment on time but it took two days for them to process it, guess what, I have to pay for that!), I decided to cut my losses and cancel the card for good. Considering that I have been with that bank (in very good standing) for over 6 years and never incurred a late fee, I was a bit surprised to witness the representative making no attempts to convince me not to cancel. Has the customer acquisition cost been significantly dropped (under $25, since that is the amount that they didn’t agree to refund) or has my credit value as a customer became so low that they didn’t bother.

Either way, I am happy to carry a lighter wallet, get one less statement in the mail every month and stick to the banks that provide the best value and the best service, the bank in question certainly wasn't doing neither …..

iPhone interface on Pocket PC

I saw this video a few months ago and forgot about it. Recently I spoke to a few iPhone owners who were interested in checking it out for fun so I am reposting it here. This chap has written an iPhone UX for pocket PC. It doesn't completely convert your pocket PC into an iPhone but it illustrates a point about the value of simple, intuitive and user friendly user interface.

Getting back to playing drums...kind of

I used to play (if it can be called that) drums when I was at school in London but then stopped for about ten years. Last month I decided to give it another go so I signed up with Donn Bennett drum school to learn how to play drums, properly. For those who think it is as easy as hitting a stick on a surface, you have no idea. It is damn hard! You need good sustained coordination between arms and legs (often one arm with opposite leg) in order to play anything that remotely sounds like music and that is very hard. I am finding the drumming experience super useful to train my brain about better coordination between my arms and legs and getting physically balanced……

I have my eye on this set as soon as I could convince a few folks including Ruby and the whole neighborhood to allow me play at home……

5k charity run was fun

Annual Employee Giving Campaign is underway at Microsoft these days and you will see lots of posters up around the campus and various auctions and events happening every day. Last Friday David Treadwell, our Vice President, arranged a 5k charity run for Microsofties on the Red West campus which got me out of the bed at 6:00AM and helped break my recent bad habit of getting to bed late at night(3:00+ AM) and getting to work late in the morning. The run was fun and I managed to finish it without bumping anyone off the track or tripping over a colleague's foot. Now I am seriously considering finding a buddy to do more running………..

Hanging out in video store

Call me old-fashioned but sometimes I prefer to hang out in a video store browsing the selection of movies instead of reading reviews and renting online.  I often stop by Scarecrow video store in Seattle and browse their great collection of international movies (best you can find around here).  You will find classic movies here that you can't get from Blockbuster or Netflix.  The first stop is of course the British movie section.  This weekend I dropped in and found a few titles that cheered me up:

1) Green Wing second series and special, not as funny as the first series but still very amusing, you've got to love the cast  

2) The Front with Woody Allen is about McCarthyism in entertainment industry in 40-50s with a comedy twist expected from any movie with Woody in it.  Interesting and funny but sad especially when a “Information Freedom” agent is threatening one of the actors to spy on a director suspected of communist connections and says “ we are in a war Mr Brown, against a ruthless and tricky enemy who will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life…to be a spy on the side of freedom is an honor”...sounds familiar?…..Good movie to watch....  

3) Revolver, last Guy Ritchie’s movie…excited to finally find a copy (Neither of Netflix nor Blockbuster has it yet). I yet have to watch it…….

Radio Lab plug

If you are looking for interesting podcasts for your music players on the go, I found Radio Lab podcasts very interesting.  Topics range from memory and forgetting to sleep and concept of time to how brain works.  You can download the podcasts here.

Admittedly, I am a terrible speller…

I love all the comments, even the ones that point out spelling mistakes. I admit, no matter how sad it sounds, I no longer can write without a spell checker (and often grammar checker, although none of the ones that I have used do a good job..).

Two good foreign movies

If you are fed up with the mainstream lowest common denominator junk movies that cinemas put on these days, I have two recommendations for you. Both foreign movies and worth watching:

1) My Best Friend (or Mon meilleur ami). It is a French movie about a professional art dealer who finds himself with no friend at an older age. He gets challenged to find a true friend and …… watch a trailer and read more about it.

2) The Lives of Others (Leben der Anderen, Das). One of the best dramatic German movies in years. A diehard east Germany secret police deals with party corruption his own way…..watch a trailer and read more about it.

British Ely Cathedral in 3D

I really enjoyed this one.....the architecture is stunning and Microsoft Research has done a great job presenting it with Photosynth....check it out here...when you open the page, it will ask you to install an ActiveX, you need to be an admin on your machine, after you installed the Photosynth you can fly around in 3D and view the cathedral from different angles.....Adding to my list of places to visit..