Universe is a scary place. It is big, beyond your imagination. Sometimes, it screams on your face, do you know what I am, how grand I am, how old I am, can you even comprehend what I am, what are you compared to me? And when you know enough science you reply, dude, I AM you. Just look up at dark sky, the star you see, thousands of light years away, the light emitted hundreds of years ago by that star is detected by your eyes. Even if you can never touch that star you feel a connection to universe by that narrow photon beam. Your eyes are made from same material as that supernova. You are stepped out from the supernova. I feel safe being in the universe despite of the massive force and energy flares surrounding me.

Religion promotes fear in you, fear of death, fear of going to hell, fear of burning for eternity. People who understand science do not fear from it or from the vast universe. Instead they are amazed by it, they are curious about it. Astronomy is humbling and character building experience. If you appreciate universe, you won’t have fear of death. You don’t have to know the ultimate answer or solve any puzzle. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose which is the way it really is as far as I can tell possibly, but it doesn’t frighten me.

This is a short movie inspired by Numbers, Geometry and Nature. Its amazing to see how different theories like Fibonacci, Golden Ratio, Delaunay, Voronoi are used by nature to create amazing life form. Its magical that a honey bee who doesn’t know anything about Mathematics or Geometry can create the strongest nest structure, spiders who doesn’t know anything about Chemistry can create strongest web that we have ever seen. Nature knows every thing, be it Mathematics, Geometry or Chemistry.

More information and source here.

Entrepreneur

I wasn’t born to be a middle manager, a middle man or middle anything. Ambition has kissed my chicks and she has whispered dreams in my ears; even so, I confess my dreams has been laughed at, and I, I love frowning back. I believe great things aren’t created by free people but man who are slaves to their ideas. I belong to my idea. And though I may be rejected, dejected or interjected, I won’t be denied. I am the harvester of opportunities, I am an Entrepreneur.

If you are wondering whats this ad about, its from the “The Power of Ideas“.

Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks (1961 – 1994) was an American stand-up comedian. His humor challenged mainstream beliefs, aiming to “enlighten people to think for themselves”. This is a clip from his show “Revelations” which he closed with “It’s Just a Ride”, one of his most famous and life-affirming philosophies. This is something that I always supported before I came across Hicks and will support it forever. You can find excerpts after the video.

The World is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it’s real, because that’s how powerful our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round, and it has thrills and chills and is very brightly colored, and it’s very loud. And it’s fun, for a while.

Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they’ve begun to question, ‘Is this real, or is this just a ride?’, and other people have remembered, and they’ve come back to us and they say ‘Hey, don’t worry. Don’t be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride.’ and we KILL THOSE PEOPLE.

“Shut him up! We have a lot invested in this ride! SHUT HIM UP! Look at my furrows of worry. Look at my big bank account, and my family. This just has to be real.”

It’s just a ride.

But we always kill those good guys who try and tell us that. You ever noticed that? And let the demons run amok. But it doesn’t matter, because … It’s just a ride.

And we can change it anytime we want. It’s only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. A choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear wants you to put bigger locks on your door, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead see all of us as one.

Here’s what we can do to change the world right now, to a better ride:

Take all that money we spent on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding, clothing, and educating the poor of the world, which it would many times over, not one human being excluded, and WE CAN EXPLORE SPACE, TOGETHER, BOTH INNER AND OUTER, forever … in peace.

– Bill Hicks (1961 – 1994)

At the ‘Beyond Belief’ discussion, Neil Tyson rebukes Richard Dawkins for his rhetorical style and Dawkins responds brilliantly. This is one of the reason I love science, if you don’t, watch what Dawkins has to say.

Today, August 15th 2010 is 63th birthday of India. Happy Independence Day to all my fellow Indians.  Here is a great Indian National Anthem video by A. R. Rahman and other best artists from India, my all time favorite.

My favorite quote from the one and only, Bruce Lee. “Be formless… shapeless, like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle; it becomes the bottle. You put it into a teapot; it becomes the teapot. Water can flow, or it can crash. Be water, my friend” Watch the video and be amazed!

You’ve got a big, important report to write for work and you’re dreading it. The deadline has been weighing on your mind for weeks and so far, you’ve done nothing about it. At this point, its do or die situation. Still, you set aside time this afternoon to buckle down and get to work, but instead you’re playing Solitaire, you’re checking Facebook, you’re reorganizing your pens, you’re chain-smoking on the fire escape, and you’re feeling like crap. You’re procrastinating.

If you think you are alone in doing so, you are wrong. Everybody I know is facing the same situation. They keep delaying their important stuff. Some people think that this is not the right time or perfect time to do it, some people think let me just watch one last Youtube video before I get started on it. The reason are different but the phenomena is same, Procrastination.

The only way to make procrastination productive is to get SOMETHING done instead of EVERYTHING. This will at least get you started and starting means the hardest part if over, which is stop delaying. Let me know in comments how you deal with your Procrastination and how you make your day more productive by GTD.

Alan Watts speaking about Success. Life is like a music, there is no “meaning of life” or “purpose of life”. Life is meant to be enjoyed and cherish all little things and those moments. Its not about finding the destination, its about enjoying the journey.

Do you have difficulty finding a parking spot in downtown or crowded area? Well, here is the solution, create your own parking spot. This lady is so smart that she used transparent plastic layer with white solid lines as to fool cops thinking its a legit parking space. She also put a parking sign on the pole. (The font of parking sign looks fishy though, may be Beijing has those kind of signs)