FreeRice

FreeRice is a sister site of the world poverty site, Poverty.com. One of the recent absolutely amazing concept - Give free rice to hungry people by playing a simple word game.

It has 2 simple goals - (a) Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free (b) Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free. Improve your speaking, writing, thinking, grades, job performance...

Save Newsmap

Newsmap, a heavily linked from all around the internet and has always had a really high number of daily hits. As of, November 15th 2007, Google decided to pull the plug on it by shutting down access to the parser used to scrape their HTML. Newsmap basically reads their site and takes all the bits needed to create a one screen visualization of all the news they themselves scrape from the rest of the internet. Blog Link. Now that was the bad news.

The good news is - Newsmap is back online and very healthy.

Pre-Diwali Vacation - Aurangabad

I had a small vacation after a long time. No - this time it was not a wildlife place, but to explore the 2 well known world heritage monuments - Ajanta & Ellora Caves - for the second time. I spent 4 days instead of 2 out there but still I feel was less. Check out some pics here. More to come soon.

How to be creative

So you want to be more creative, in art, in business, whatever. Here are some tips that have worked:

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.
24. Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
25. You have to find your own schtick.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
28. Power is never given. Power is taken.
29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.
31. Remain frugal.

These are excerpts from the website http://www.gapinvoid.com

Golden Skies

Few more Khatachks from my residence just before the heavy down pours in the first week of July. Check them out below.