All in good time…

You might find the reasons,

Why God was placing dice

Or who you thought were real friends,

Were just brilliant actors at playing nice

 

You might run into that old friend again,

On the other side of a man-made line

You might find that love was actually never lost,

But all, in good time

 

You might reach, the moon someday

Or perhaps realize, that it’s too far away

Whatever path, you end up taking

You will travel, to the same cross one day

 

You might hit, the very same blocks

Even with enough bread, women or wine

And you might be pleased, to see the light

But all, in good time

 

You might double, your salary overnight

And haughtily surpass, even your best friends

Until you find, you will have to leave it behind

That one fine day, your time ends

 

You might win, more than you lose

And one warm summer, you will probably shine

And you will live, to cherish and savour,

This all, in good time

 

The fair of life, may appear unfair

Until the tides appear to turn

And the reality of dreams can be seen,

When the veil begins to burn

 

So far, so good, and thus it goes

Between the start and finishing line

Crests and troughs, you touch each of them,

Though all, only in good time

Another good idea

“Making more money” is probably right at the top in the popularity charts for pretty much everyone on this planet. And there are perhaps as many schemes to make more money as there are people on this planet. Though it’s obvious that out of the six billion odd such schemes, only a few seem to work most of the time.

The world of stock markets is one of those “get rich quickly” worlds. Though of course, what takes you up quickly, also has the potential of pulling you down equally quickly as well. And this is where the concept of stock tips come in. A concept on which the entire community of stock analysts thrives and earns a rather sumptuous livelihood.

Traditionally the interaction between consumers and analysts has been more of a one-way, compartmentalized communication. With a consumer having to select a particular wealth advisory and management firm, and that firm then deciding which relationship and wealth managers to be assigned to this customer. While this methodology has its own advantages, a “stock tips broker” kind of online website makes a lot of sense to give this analyst/consumer interaction a new feel.

One such online website is Hi On Stocks @ http://hionstocks.com/w/home.aspx. This provides a good platform to the freelance as well as professional analysts to earn money by offering their services of providing stock tips, and consumers obviously stand to gain money if those tips work out for them. To understand simply, it’s a kind of magicbricks.com or makaan.com, except that in this case the buyers and sellers are not dealing in properties, but in stock market tips.

Quite an interesting concept actually, as consumers are not bound to any specific wealth management firm and instead can pick and choose from amongst all those analysts who wish to provide their recommendations. And at the same time, analysts make money everytime their recommendations deliver the goods.

Definitely worth it.

The controller-free world – Part II

Here’s a very different view-point on the topic that I was referring to earlier.

I am absolutely sure that we will certainly achieve the most efficient and perfect communication methodology between humans and machines (it’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when). But meanwhile, what about the communication challenges between humans themselves?

With machines we will have wonderful relationships, but when will we achieve the same with our fellow humans?

With phones we will have all kinds of touch facilities, but when will that most important “human touch” become a part of our basic mentality?

With all kinds of machines we will break every possible barrier in the way of our smooth communication, but when will we break our needless, artificial barriers of race, ethnicity, social stature, color, creed, and all the other bullshit that we have surrounded ourselves with?

In this world where everybody tends to become a “control-freak” (your boss, your spouse, your landlord, your neighbor, your political representative, your train co-passenger, and so on…), when will we actually achieve the “controller-free” nirvana?

The controller-free world – Part I

I believe the concept started with touch-screens. As a replacement of the traditional mouse kind of pointer. So in your smart-phones you could start using your fingers to achieve the same results as what was earlier achieved by moving various keys on the keypad to select the right application.

The same concept was carried forward, albeit in a different way, into the world of console games, with the Wii providing strap-on controllers to give a realistic feel to your tennis and boxing games on the console. There was something tied to your hands, but yes, it was different from the traditional game controllers with 10+ keys and your thumbs getting sore after delivering huge blows in Dead or Alive.

In the world of touch, there was more evolution, with the latest entrant being something called “multi-touch”. The first idea in that line was “Surface” which featured a Minority Report kind of interface, as users could literally play with all that they could see on the screen. You could simulate an entire blackjack game with those flicks of hands that you would usually see as a trademark of a dealer in Vegas.

And then the iPhone entered the world, and it completely did away with the concept of any pointing device on phones, giving full usability only via fingers, no stylus and no pointers.

They took the multi-touch concept further ahead straight into iPad which actually looks just like a bigger phone without the phone call facility, though of course you can see pictures and movies and books on an almost laptop-sized screen, and again, have no place for any kind of pointers or pointing-devices.

Meanwhile, back in the gaming world came another major leap as Kinect was announced, promising the gamers no strap-ons, no keys, and no need to exercise your thumb muscles as you pound away your opponents. Instead, you exercise the same muscles which you would otherwise do if you were in a real boxing match. The concept being that of “gestures”, almost analogous to the multi-touch concept, except that there is obviously no touch involved.

In between we of course had various other attempts at “non-intrusive” technologies such as voice dialing or voice commands, but till date they haven’t met with much success due to severe differences in accents and pronunciations across the world.

Though I believe that in that combination (voice + gestures) is where the future lies, in terms of dissolving any remaining differences between the human-machine interfaces. The rationale is very simple actually – If what we are trying is to simulate as near a human kind of experience then the obvious choice is voice+gestures, because that is exactly how humans interact with each other. We talk and we simultaneously move our hands and head etc. (the whole science of body language) as we try to “communicate” and it is this final code of communication that all the technological powers in this world are trying to crack.

Let’s wait, and watch the death of the controllers…

If we said No to Drugs…

 

A strange thought crossed my mind as my conversing with one of my friends this afternoon. We were talking about the necessity of surgery etc. in certain cases and it struck me that if a doctor can actually cure a patient by also suggesting alternative therapy such as exercise and meditation, then that doctor stands to lose a lot of revenue which he/she might have otherwise obtained had the patient been forced to undergo the complicated (and obviously expensive) surgery.

Now I obviously have nothing against doctors. They are doing a good job no doubt. But this trail of thought makes me wonder that all the things that they do with money (buying food, clothes, Merc S-class, second homes in Alibagh etc.) are actually a result of somebody being in pain or distress. What if there were no diseases at all? No injuries, no lifestyle symptoms, no cancer, no tumours, no infections, no allergies, nothing at all? The only reason why people would come to hospitals would probably be for child-birth and nothing else.

It is way too far-fetched, I agree. But for a moment, hypothetically of course, what if it would really happen one day?

What would be the economic impact of this utopian human condition?

- No medical colleges (and their obscene donations), no more struggles for those coveted degrees from Harvard Med and other Ivy League institutions, no research papers on obscure infections of obscure body parts, no symposiums and no seminars in huge hotel ballrooms.

- No Pharmaceutical companies, no Big Pharma and their autocratic misdeeds in the underdeveloped nations, no clash for marketing rights of generics, no patent laws, no million dollar legal fees, no billion dollar blockbusters, no billion dollar investments in NCEs, no clinical trials, no contract manufacturing, no medical representatives, no pharmaceutical supply chains, and the various software packages to manage them.

- No hospital chains, no major healthcare facilities, no pathology labs, no ultrasound, no MRI, no X-ray, no blood tests

- And of course, no Rx, no OTC, no syringes, and no drugs.

 

Unbelievable? The thought itself is so unlike anything you would have ever surmised. I guess saying no to drugs ain’t so easy after all…