Life Unlimited

Sidharth Jaggi, a fellow IIT-ian, and currently an Asst Professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, observed that college students are often unable to pursue the experiences that would broaden their experiences, and end up walking only the commonly trodden path.

This problem is even more severe in India, as Sidharth realized when he went to Caltech for his PhD and observed the life of a typical American college student. Of this realization was born Life Unlimited. The idea behind Life Unlimited is simple. College students have time, energy, and ideas, but lack resources; and even if they do have resources in some cases, it's difficult for them to connect with people who've done adventurous and exotic things before. LU acts as the bridge: it brings together people who're now in the real world to provide resources, financing and mentoring to those who can make the best use of it.
Life Unlimited fellows get a grant which helps them finance their dreams, as well as access to mentors who can guide them.

As a pilot program, Life Unlimited was launched in two colleges in Mumbai, and we picked three college students as the first batch of fellows. Hindutan Times has more details on the program, the fellows and their projects, in this article titled Dream Catchers.

Save to Del.Icio.us Digg This Submit to Reddit Stumble this

Ultimate drives

BMW & Michelin have published a list of 15 ultimate drives in the US. I’ve done a few of them (#3, #4, #6, #7, #11, part of #12, part of #13 and part of #14 in the list reproduced below), and would agree that they were pretty damn good.

I might end up doing #1 over the Memorial Day Weekend.

1. Adirondacks – New York state
2. Austin and the Texas Hill County - Texas
3. California’s Central Coast
4. Canyonlands of Utah
5. Colombia River Gorge and Mount Hood - Oregon
6. Florida Everglades
7. Florida Keys
8. High Rockies - Colorado
9. Hudson River Valley – outside NYC
10. Maine Coast
11. Northern California’s Wine Country
12. Red Rock Country and Grand Canyon National Park
13. Redwood Empire – California’s north coast
14. Skyline Drive/Blue Ridge Parkway – Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee
15. White Mountains –New Hampshire

Save to Del.Icio.us Digg This Submit to Reddit Stumble this

Corporate jargon

In my previous job in Consulting, I was exposed to a lot of corporate jargon. I'd routinely hear people say things like "We should throw the monkey on their back" or "I want to put the elephant on the table". These two phrases were inspiration for a colleague and me to come up with a list of all things living and breathing that you may put in different places (many of these, of course, can not be used as corporate jargon):

1. A Bull in a China Shop
2. A cat on a hot tin roof
3. A Wolf in Sheep's clothing
4. A bee in the bonnet
5. A fly in the ointment
6. A horse to the water (as in, you can lead a horse..)
7. A horse after the cart (considering that you should not be putting a
horse before the cart)
8. A lamb to the slaughter
9. Ants in the pants
10. A cat in the bag (Ok, this a bit of a stretch; you can "let a cat out
of the bag", so I'm assuming you can put it there in the first place)
11. Pig in the poke
12. Rats to a sinking ship (since they are going to desert the ship, they
must've been taken to it in the first place)
13. Moths to the flame
14. Butterflies in the stomach
15. Bat in the belfry
16. Bug in the code ;)
17. Bug in the rug (as snug as a bug in a rug)
18. Dog in a manger
19. Deer in the headlights
20. Toad in the hole (as in the sausage dish or the pub game)
21. Frog in the throat
22. Cat among the pigeons
23. Cow over the moon (as in, the cow jumped over the moon)
24. Bird in hand
25. Zebra at a crossing

Save to Del.Icio.us Digg This Submit to Reddit Stumble this

Betting on global warming

I've been advising (bud-wising?) everyone to invest in beer stock if they believe in global warming. And short coffee.

What do you think?

Save to Del.Icio.us Digg This Submit to Reddit Stumble this

Making new friends

I became active on Facebook and Orkut recently. I am constantly amazed that some of these social networking sites announce things like "You and XYZ are friends now". Makes me scream that I have been friends with this person for a long time, and no thanks to your website. Hopefully, friendships in the future will continue to mean more the fact of accepting a connection on a social networking site.

Save to Del.Icio.us Digg This Submit to Reddit Stumble this