When I suggest that working hours should be reduced to four, I am not meaning to imply that all the remaining time should necessarily be spent in pure frivolity. I mean that four hours’ work a day should entitle a man to the necessities and elementary comforts of life, and that the rest of his time should be his to use as he might see fit. It is an essential part of any such social system that education should be carried further than it usually is at present, and should aim, in part, at providing tastes which would enable a man to use leisure intelligently. I am not thinking mainly of the sort of things that would be considered ‘highbrow’. Peasant dances have died out except in remote rural areas, but the impulses which caused them to be cultivated must still exist in human nature. The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.

In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges. These facts greatly diminished its excellence, but in spite of this drawback it contributed nearly the whole of what we call civilization. It cultivated the arts and discovered the sciences; it wrote the books, invented the philosophies, and refined social relations. Even the liberation of the oppressed has usually been inaugurated from above. Without the leisure class, mankind would never have emerged from barbarism.

The method of a leisure class without duties was, however, extraordinarily wasteful. None of the members of the class had to be taught to be industrious, and the class as a whole was not exceptionally intelligent. The class might produce one Darwin, but against him had to be set tens of thousands of country gentlemen who never thought of anything more intelligent than fox-hunting and punishing poachers. At present, the universities are supposed to provide, in a more systematic way, what the leisure class provided accidentally and as a by-product. This is a great improvement, but it has certain drawbacks. University life is so different from life in the world at large that men who live in academic milieu tend to be unaware of the preoccupations and problems of ordinary men and women; moreover their ways of expressing themselves are usually such as to rob their opinions of the influence that they ought to have upon the general public. Another disadvantage is that in universities studies are organized, and the man who thinks of some original line of research is likely to be discouraged. Academic institutions, therefore, useful as they are, are not adequate guardians of the interests of civilization in a world where everyone outside their walls is too busy for unutilitarian pursuits.

In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.

Source: In Praise of Idleness

Do you start with the inner landscape of the individual and project outward to his or her performance in office, or do you leave the inner weather of the candidates’ spiritual and psychological health to their therapists and pastors?

Each of the alternatives has had its powerful champions. In “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” John Milton tells us that when men first felt the need to institute government in order to ensure civil order, they chose one “above the rest” because of “the eminence of his wisdom and integrity.” If only Adam had not fallen, Milton adds, there would have been no necessity to choose anyone, for in the beginning “all men were naturally born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself” and were therefore born “to command not to obey.”

That’s just the trouble, declared his contemporary (and philosophical opposite) Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes agrees that in the abstract all men are equal and equally free, but that means that, left to their own devices, they will prey on one another and produce a general instability that will lead to most lives being “nasty, brutish and short.” Hobbes doesn’t believe in the natural goodness invoked by Milton (“the eminence of his wisdom and integrity”), and so he opts for the artificial solution of granting to one man (called the sovereign) all the rights and powers in the state provided that he secure the property of every man against the depredations of his neighbors and protect the country from its foreign enemies.

The sovereign’s ability to make good on these obligations will have nothing to do with his moral character — “the question of who is the better man,” Hobbes says, “has no place in the condition of mere nature” — and everything to do with his political skills. Hobbes insists that the “worthiness” to lead is different from “the worth or value of a man and also from his merit.” What is important is “a particular power or ability for that wherof he is said to be worthy; which particular ability is usually named fitness or aptitude.” Is he good at the job? — does he have the aptitude? — is a more pertinent question than is he good?

Hobbes was anticipated by Machiavelli, who noted that everyone always proclaims “how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith and to live with integrity and not with craft.”

But, says Machiavelli, everyone is wrong. A prince should keep faith until he discovers that those to whom he has given it are working against his interests. In those circumstances “a wise lord cannot, or ought not … to keep faith … when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer.” Nor, he adds, “will there ever be wanting to princes legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance.” That is, you can always plausibly claim to be keeping faith at the very moment you break it; but when you do so, Machiavelli counsels, you “must know well how to disguise this characteristic, and be a great pretender and dissembler.”

In short, craft before integrity, but have sufficient craft to produce integrity’s image. Machiavelli’s hero in this regard is the notoriously corrupt Pope Alexander VI, who “did nothing else but deceive men. … [N]evertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankiSource: Integrity or Craft: The Leadership QuestionDo you start with the inner landscape of the individual and project outward to his or her performance in office, or do you leave the inner weather of the candidates’ spiritual and psychological health to their therapists and pastors?

Each of the alternatives has had its powerful champions. In “The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” John Milton tells us that when men first felt the need to institute government in order to ensure civil order, they chose one “above the rest” because of “the eminence of his wisdom and integrity.” If only Adam had not fallen, Milton adds, there would have been no necessity to choose anyone, for in the beginning “all men were naturally born free, being the image and resemblance of God himself” and were therefore born “to command not to obey.”

That’s just the trouble, declared his contemporary (and philosophical opposite) Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes agrees that in the abstract all men are equal and equally free, but that means that, left to their own devices, they will prey on one another and produce a general instability that will lead to most lives being “nasty, brutish and short.” Hobbes doesn’t believe in the natural goodness invoked by Milton (“the eminence of his wisdom and integrity”), and so he opts for the artificial solution of granting to one man (called the sovereign) all the rights and powers in the state provided that he secure the property of every man against the depredations of his neighbors and protect the country from its foreign enemies.

The sovereign’s ability to make good on these obligations will have nothing to do with his moral character — “the question of who is the better man,” Hobbes says, “has no place in the condition of mere nature” — and everything to do with his political skills. Hobbes insists that the “worthiness” to lead is different from “the worth or value of a man and also from his merit.” What is important is “a particular power or ability for that wherof he is said to be worthy; which particular ability is usually named fitness or aptitude.” Is he good at the job? — does he have the aptitude? — is a more pertinent question than is he good?

Hobbes was anticipated by Machiavelli, who noted that everyone always proclaims “how praiseworthy it is in a prince to keep faith and to live with integrity and not with craft.”

But, says Machiavelli, everyone is wrong. A prince should keep faith until he discovers that those to whom he has given it are working against his interests. In those circumstances “a wise lord cannot, or ought not … to keep faith … when the reasons that caused him to pledge it exist no longer.” Nor, he adds, “will there ever be wanting to princes legitimate reasons to excuse this nonobservance.” That is, you can always plausibly claim to be keeping faith at the very moment you break it; but when you do so, Machiavelli counsels, you “must know well how to disguise this characteristic, and be a great pretender and dissembler.”

In short, craft before integrity, but have sufficient craft to produce integrity’s image. Machiavelli’s hero in this regard is the notoriously corrupt Pope Alexander VI, who “did nothing else but deceive men. … [N]evertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankind.”

In short, craft before integrity, but have sufficient craft to produce integrity’s image. Machiavelli’s hero in this regard is the notoriously corrupt Pope Alexander VI, who “did nothing else but deceive men. … [N]evertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankind.”

Source: Integrity or Craft: The Leadership Question

Khusrau baji prem ki khelun pi ke sang
Jeet gayi to piya more hari pee ke sang.

(I’m playing a game with my beloved; if I win he will become mine,if lose I will become his)

Yesterday I planned to visit Belur.  Since I was going alone I decided to use public transport for my visit. I checked with KSRTC bus and decided to board on either 5 am bus or 6 am bus. Its a 4 hour journey from Bangalore to Belur and anything after 6 am will wont give me enough time to visit all the places around and come back  same day. I booked Meru cab to drop me to inter-state bus stand. I received a  message from Meeru with my reference number and message that cab guy will contact me 30 min before journey i.e 3.30 am. I was so sure of cab that I don’t event set alarm in my mobile. When I wake up i realised it already 5.30 and there is no cab !!!

I immediately called Meeru customer services and to get yet another surprise of the day. 30 min hold time on IVRS !!!.  So they didn’t sent a cab for me and ensured that I cannot contact them if anything went wrong during the whole process.  I am sure terms and conditions for whole trans cation will be such that I cannot make them pay for such  pathetic experience and lost opportunity cost. Only thing I can do is not to rely on Meru cab ( ‘Reply on us’ is there tag line ) .

Hello,

My name is Mrs .Maria Johnson.I am a dying woman who has decided to will
her fortune to you for charitable goals.

I am 59 years old and was diagnosed for cancer about 2 years ago, Kindly
Contact my lawyer through this email address
(barristerschamberswalterashdow@gmail.com) if you are interested in carrying out
this task,so that he can arrange the release of the funds($10,500,000.00)
to you.

My lawyer’s name is Barrister Walter Ashdown.I know I have never met you
but instincts tells me to do this,and i hope you act sincerely.

Thank you and God bless you.

Maria Johnson.

Got this mail spam today.  I was wondering  how this spam will make money for generator and its  effect on internet network.. Spam filtering  market as big as search.  If anyone  can provide a workings solution he  can be next Google.

“Libya, India, Japan, America, any country in the world you just name it, all of us, we’re all pirates”

–Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi at his  first speech to the General Assembly

Source:IBNlive

If in the morning when you wake,
If the sun does not appear,
I will be here.
If in the dark we lose sight of love,
Hold and have no fear,
I will be here.

I will be here,
When you feel like being quiet,
When you need to speak your mind I will listen.
Through the winning, losing, and trying we’ll be together,
And I will be here.
If in the morning when you wake,
If the future is unclear,
I will be here.
As sure as seasons were made for change,
Our lifetimes were made for years,
I will be here.

by Steven Curtis Chapman

I sail past paddy fields and palm trees and my heart soars as I think fondly of this land of boundless plenty, abundant in smiles, moustaches and sari’s in shades the rainbow couldn’t even begin to imagine:

- where cows are avoided by cars at the expense of people but if you do hit a person, the mob will kill you before a policeman has chance to arrest you; where you don’t give up your seat on the bus for a mother with her baby, but instead take the baby and sit them on your lap;

- where governments sign multi-million dollar arms deals with the UK and US, where the price of one fighter jet with provide 1.5million people with safe drinking water for life; where the shake of a head means more just no – you’re welcome, it was very nice to meet you, my pleasure, after you and of course, no thank you;

- where you board a train with your luggage and disembark with new friends; where the towers of temples litter the horizon and rubbish litter the floor until sacred cows munch their way through it; where bad luck is put down to karma and the world we live in is just an illusion (yes the matrix is based on hindu culture);

- where everything you do is everybody else’s business; where men try and brush themselves against you and old women practically sit on you for your white skin to transfer to them; where the majority of mobile phones have been installed with the Titantic theme tune and cars play cheerful dittys when reversing;

- where homosexuality is illegal but men wear skirts and walk down the street holding hands; if you’re tired, you just lie down in the street and have a sleep; where you don’t use the flyover to cross to another platform but you jump down and cross the tracks;

- where you can fill yourself up on an amazing thali for 25p but 400m people go hungry; where you get by only on human kindness, but where beggars are left to rot in the streets; where the swastika is a symbol of peace, of evolution;

- Brahmin priests get fat on the devotion of 400m people living on less than 25p a day; where in a society where Ahimsa, non-violence, is the pervading rule a societal structure can exist that treats 20% of it’s population as no better than dogs.

I sail past paddy fields and palm trees and my heart soars as I think fondly of this land of boundless plenty, abundant in smiles, moustaches and sari’s in shades the rainbow couldn’t even begin to imagine:

- where cows are avoided by cars at the expense of people but if you do hit a person, the mob will kill you before a policeman has chance to arrest you; where you don’t give up your seat on the bus for a mother with her baby, but instead take the baby and sit them on your lap;

- where governments sign multi-million dollar arms deals with the UK and US, where the price of one fighter jet with provide 1.5million people with safe drinking water for life; where the shake of a head means more just no – you’re welcome, it was very nice to meet you, my pleasure, after you and of course, no thank you;

- where you board a train with your luggage and disembark with new friends; where the towers of temples litter the horizon and rubbish litter the floor until sacred cows munch their way through it; where bad luck is put down to karma and the world we live in is just an illusion (yes the matrix is based on hindu culture);

- where everything you do is everybody else’s business; where men try and brush themselves against you and old women practically sit on you for your white skin to transfer to them; where the majority of mobile phones have been installed with the Titantic theme tune and cars play cheerful dittys when reversing;

- where homosexuality is illegal but men wear skirts and walk down the street holding hands; if you’re tired, you just lie down in the street and have a sleep; where you don’t use the flyover to cross to another platform but you jump down and cross the tracks;

- where you can fill yourself up on an amazing thali for 25p but 400m people go hungry; where you get by only on human kindness, but where beggars are left to rot in the streets; where the swastika is a symbol of peace, of evolution;

- Brahmin priests get fat on the devotion of 400m people living on less than 25p a day; where in a society where Ahimsa, non-violence, is the pervading rule a societal structure can exist that treats 20% of it’s population as no better than dogs.

Source:   It’s not over until India decides its so

One form of the hot-stove effect is the competency trap, where learning encourages people to stick to and improve skills they have already honed to a fine degree rather than spend time gaining new ones. Some of my grandchildren say to me, “We’re not very good at mathematics, so we’re not going to take any more mathematics.” I say, “Wait a minute. Mathematics is a practice sport. If you’re not very good at it, you take more of it.” That’s counterintuitive, and it goes against the main logic of experiential learning, not to mention grandchildren’s sentiments about control over their own lives. It has also been demonstrated that the hot-stove effect leads experiential learners to be risk averse. It is possible to limit the hot-stove effect by slowing learning so that you increase the sample of alternatives that have poor results. That obviously has the cost of incurring short run losses and consequently is hard for an adaptive system to do. …

Part of foolishness, or what looks like foolishness, is stealing ideas from a different domain. Someone in economics, for example, may borrow ideas from evolutionary biology, imagining that the ideas might be relevant to evolutionary economics. A scholar who does so will often get the ideas wrong; he may twist and strain them in applying them to his own discipline. But this kind of cross-disciplinary stealing can be very rich and productive. It’s a tricky thing, because foolishness is usually that—foolishness. It can push you to be very creative, but uselessly creative. The chance that someone who knows no physics will be usefully creative in physics must be so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from it. Yet big jumps are likely to come in the form of foolishness that, against long odds, turns out to be valuable. So there’s a nice tension between how much foolishness is good for knowledge and how much knowledge is good for foolishness.

Source: Ideas as Art: A Conversation with James G. March

The hot stove effect first observed by Mark Twain. He observed that if a cat happens to jump on a hot stove, he will never jump on a hot stove again. This of course is a good thing. However, not so good is the fact that he will not jump on a cold stove either, or perhaps anything the bears the slightest resemblance to a stove. This effect have many implication in area of leanring and experimentaal innivation.