Charlie Munger's Thoughts

From Motley Fool: Interesting points from one of the greatest investing minds in the world - Charlie Munger.

Michael Crichton

One of my all-time favorite writers Michael Crichton died today. I’ve immensely enjoyed his unique style of blending the scientific and technological facts into his stories. From his old thriller “The Great Train Robbery” to his latest “Next”, he has entertained and intrigued us in many ways. It is sad that we won’t be able to see any more of his great work.

One man's wish - preventing XDR-TB

James Nachtwey, a 2007 TED prize winner, wished to help prevent spreading of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB). XDRTB.org is an extraordinary effort to tell the story of XDR-TB and TB through his powerful photographs.

Spread the story. Stop the disease.

Large Hadron Collider

Ever wanted to know why/how our planet Earth is stuck in an orbit around the Sun? What force is holding other planets from falling off into the unknown space? How black holes are formed? How does gravity really work? And the ever famous question - how was the universe formed?

Well, we might get to know answers (at least for some of these questions) sooner than we thought. At least that's what all the scientists at CERN dream so. They built the world's largest and most expensive science experiment ever called the Large Hadron Collider, (shortly called as LHC) and successfully circulated its first beams today.

You can read more about LHC here.

Even Google celebrated the launching of this experiment by devoting a LHC logo on their home page today.



Here's a cool rap video from the CERN scientists. Informative and sticky.



Update: Found this informative link about LHC.
10 things about LHC you wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

Also found this video explaining what LHC does. Thanks Avuykta.

TechCrunch50 2008 Finalists

I hope most of the software professionals around the globe who would want to build a start-up and in a way become an entrepreneur in the process would know about TechCrunch and the coverage they shower on these start-ups. It has become a cult these days in the blogosphere that TechCrunch can make-or-break a start-up. Even though they don't promote any start-ups (some start-ups do sponsor TechCrunch website), it is true that their good review can elevate a new start-up to great heights. For once, a server going down because of heavy traffic is a titillating experience.

Every year they pick the best of the lot. The 50 finalists for this year are below.

Last year's winner was Mint, a great cool website that allows you to manage your personal finances easily all-in-one-place.



Who will be this year? We will know in two more days.

Update: This year's TechCrunch50 winner is Yammer, a Twitter like messaging system aimed at internal corporate communications.

His Last Lecture

What would you lecture about when you are sure to die within a few weeks/months? An amazing person, that I came to know few months ago, gave his last lecture on "How to Achieve Your Childhood Dream". He is Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University who was fighting pancreatic cancer for the past two years, passed away yesterday.

You have to watch this video to know how amazing, focused and accepting he was. A truely great person, but a great loss to all of us. Even though I don't know him personally, I really feel sad that he is no more.



You can find his full last lecture here.

Thanks to Prabu for reminding me about him today.

The Greatest Silence: Rape in The Congo

Ever felt so small and helpless when there are atrocious and heart-breaking incidents happening in the other corners of the unknown world? I felt a visceral emotion today when I read about the HBO's recent documentary: "The Greatest Silence: Rape in The Congo".

It is about the brutal civil war for the past decade in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Almost 4 million people have been killed and it is claimed as the deadliest conflict since World War II. The saddest part is the invisible and silenced casualties: tens and thousands of women and girls being systematically raped and most of them killed later. There was no one to tell their story until now.

This shook me the most. "When 4 million people have died, and no one cares, we don't feel human anymore." - Jean Paul, a Congolese man.

The "enough" project works to end such genocides including "The Greatest Silence".