Diversity Evolution: A peaceful theme for the 21st Century

Will the 21st century be the flag-bearer to the arrival of what I call the "global" man, who can live, travel, and sleep in the country of his choice and contribute to the growth of the "globe"? Given that people in many countries are so very diverse and contribute to the total growth of the economy, I view a future that will be relatively peaceful and "man" will be free to live, eat, and sleep wherever! Of course, there is economic imbalance and that creates restlessness and there is a long way to go, but I hope we break the barriers and create the unified globe.

lucrative graphics chip market: Intel wants a piece of the pie

Intel is hiring for a new "visual computing" group that will build many-core chips graphics processing capabilities for the scientific community. Given that this market returns a revenue of $5 Billion every quarter, it looks like a good investment to get into. Further, Intel is looking to have it own piece of the GPGPU (General Purpose Graphics Processing Units) or the CPU+GPU market that AMD is already touting. Looks like a new area of work for the program analysis folks and the hardware designers.

Lake Chad, Africa: A lost lake

Lake Chad used to be the third largest inland water body in Africa until sixties. Since then, the lake has shrunk by a whopping 95% due to a combination of agriculture and global warming. Delving further into the reasons would show that human activity and agriculture have been around the area long before the sixties. So, is human activity a significant reason why the lake is shrinking? reason yes, but not significant. That leaves us with one thing that has been a big debate for some time now; global warming. While newspaper and academicians don't seem to have a clear consensus on this issue, we do know that it is the human race that is causing lakes to dry up. I think it is time that we actually make an attempt at identifying the cause and work on correcting it.

Predicting like a market analyst: Difficult or Easy

This is one of those random thoughts that come across your mind when you think about the technology industry in general. How does a new gadget like the iPhone perform? What is the best initial prediction to make? Come to think of it, you have around tens of thousands of new electronic gadgets coming out every year. Of these, some where between 1% and 5% are of good quality that should even have made it past the design process. I believe that does not include the copycat and shadow products out there. Of the good quality ones, only about 10% make it to the market at the right time. Of the right timed ones, only about a tenth of them really capture people's imagination and become a huge hit that changes the lives of people. I am just guessing the percentage and there is no proof to support them , but I think they would be in a reasonable ballpark. SO, finally we have about one of two products every year that may succeed depending upon the complex equation that is the consumer. Given all this, I think the market analyst's prediction that "I question if the product will succeed?" seems to be right almost always.

Two behaviors that are common among market analysts are "I dont think the product will make it" or "always predicting in the same direction for the company quarter after quarter". So, I am beginning to wonder if you can say "no" to the product's success and still have a great record that fails once in ten thousands times because those are the products that really make it?

I understand predicting a product's success margin is a hugely complicated job that depends on infinite factors, but, there are people who bank on market prediction and make the big bucks. So, is market prediction almost always easy? Can u make the big bucks with a negative attitude?

New year, resolutions, and people

It is the new year! And, it is time for resolutions that help orient people towards their goal, atleast theoretically, and temporarily. January is one of those months where euphoria is high enough that everyone has an amazing perspective of the coming year: the images of things coming through to fruition and the wave of expectation and excitement. And during this time, I wonder, if last year has made me a better person in society? Can I get rid of my known follies? I have quite a list of things to do that have been on me since long, but, will I finally take the steps to chase my ambition, which brings me to a question; Do I know what my final goal is? I begin the quest today to these questions during this "man made" new year with the words of Alfred Lord Tennyson in "The Brook",

I chatter, chatter, as I flow,

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.