Wired’s story on Einstein:

“Einstein left school at 15 without an impressive record, trained in Zurich, Switzerland, as a teacher in physics and mathematics, and took a job as a clerk in a patent office. But at work and in his spare time, he formalized his adolescent thoughts into a paper called, ‘On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.’ It was June 1905, the year that Einstein changed physics, and the way we regard the universe, forever.

Einstein had already rocked the physics world that year, in March. He would do so again a couple of months later. To commemorate the centenary of this annus mirabilis, and to mark the 50 years since Einstein’s death, 2005 has been designated World Year of Physics. (In the United Kingdom and Ireland it’s called Einstein Year.)

In those remarkable papers, the 26-year-old Einstein produced the most radical and far-reaching research ever seen, at least since Isaac Newton in the 17th century. First up, Einstein showed that light behaves as a particle as well as a wave. He considered this to be the most revolutionary of his ideas, and in 1921 he won a Nobel Prize for it. It was this theory of light that went on to inspire quantum mechanics.

Second, Einstein produced special relativity. Newton said, ‘Time exists in and of itself and flows equably without reference to anything external,’ and made similar statements about space, but Einstein showed that measurements about time and space are not absolute, they are relative.

The concept remains notoriously difficult to understand, so much so that the tire company Pirelli is running a competition to find the best explanation. The prize is 25,000 euros.

Finally, there was Brownian motion — the then-unexplained behavior of particles. This paper explained the existence of atoms and molecules, something we take for granted now.

Special relativity in 1905 led Einstein to general relativity in 1915. “General relativity remains our best theory of gravity to date,” said Fay Dowker, a physicist also at Imperial College, London. “According to general relativity, space and time are not separate concepts but are woven together into a single entity: spacetime,” said Dowker. “The phenomenon that we experience as the force of gravity is a manifestation of the fact that spacetime is warped and bent by the matter in it.”

General relativity led Einstein to the most famous scientific equation in the world (perhaps the only famous scientific equation in the world): E=mc². With it, Einstein showed that mass can be converted into an immense amount of energy. Historically, that led to the end of World War II in the Pacific, when atomic bombs were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“Without Einstein’s theory of the photon, we would have no lasers. Without Einstein’s general theory of relativity, we would have no way of understanding the evolution of the early universe. Worst of all would be to be without Einstein’s special theory of relativity; we would have no understanding of elementary particles and the atomic nucleus.”

We would have no computers without quantum theory, and airplanes would fly off-course if global positioning systems failed to make adjustments due to general relativity. Computers, travel and communication as we know it would not exist. These things are consequences of Einstein’s work, but he was interested in the bigger questions. Specifically, the biggest question of all.

“I want to know how God created this world,” Einstein famously remarked. “I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.”

In this, at least, Einstein cannot be said to have succeeded.

“To a large degree he created more problems than he solved,” said Magueijo. “It’s the mark of a great scientist. He started modern cosmology, but we still don’t know where the universe came from. He explained gravity and the quantum, but never told us how to put them together.”

Putting them together was one of Einstein’s dreams and, going unfulfilled, is something his intellectual descendants have been attempting ever since. String theory is one of the leading contenders to unify the interactions, yet without Einstein’s 100-year-old papers, science might have progressed in an entirely different direction.

“I think that without Einstein we would still by now have discovered all these theories,” said Weinberg, “because unlike artistic creations or religious myths, they are what they are because that is the way the world is.”

Einstein accelerated our understanding of the universe, but we would have gotten there in the end. He himself recognized that this is how science works. When Edwin Hubble showed proof that the universe was expanding, for example, Einstein admitted he was wrong.

In his later years, Einstein said: “One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”

He became an icon and remains a role model, and may he inspire us for another 100 years.

Fragmented markets, borderless competition and what’s referred to as “market overload” are making it harder than ever for the $1 trillion global advertising and marketing industry to come up with creative approaches to help differentiate and sell their products.

The Luxury Market: Trying to Hit a Moving Target

As the notion of luxury changes, marketers of high-end products are wrestling with the challenge of maintaining brand exclusivity while reaping higher sales, according to executives who spoke on a panel titled, “The New Luxury: Balancing Volume vs. Elite,” during the Wharton Marketing Conference. Participants discussed such topics as licensing, counterfeiting, trading up and new definitions of affluence.

Show Me the Money: Extracting Value from Digital Content

The effect of digital content and new technology on the entertainment and media industries is: a) a devastating body blow; b) a profit-spewing bonanza or c) the creation of a promising market in its infancy. The answer is all three, depending on whether you are talking about the beleaguered music industry, the fortunate movie industry or the cable business’s hopes for digital cable.

Pricing and Positioning for Entrepreneurial Marketers

Positioning and pricing are the most important entrepreneurial marketing decisions that you can make … Before you go out and raise a lot of money, before you invest in research and development, before you start spending serious money, you must find out if there is a demand for your product and whether or not you can price it so you can make money

This is from Financial Times Handbook of Management.

1970 Robert Townsend: Up the Organization

1973 Henry Mintzberg: The Nature of Managerial Work

1978 Chris Argyris and Donald Schon: Organizational Learning

1978 James MacGregor Burns: Leadership

1978 Taiichi Ohno: Toyota Production System

1979 Reg Revans: Action Learning

1980 Alvin Toffler: The Third Wave

1980 Michael Porter: Competitive Strategy

1981 Richard Pascale and Anthony Athos: The Art of Japanese Management

1982 John Naisbitt: Megatrends

1982 Kenichi Ohmae: The Mind of the Strategist

1982 Tom Peters and Robert Waterman: In Search of Excellence

1982 W. Edwards Deming: Out of the Crisis

1983 Rosabeth Moss Kanter: Change Masters

1984 Meredith Belbin: Management Teams

1985 Edgar Schein: Organizational Culture and Leadership

1985 Harold Geneen: Managing

1985 Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus: Leaders

1986 Akio Morita: Made in Japan

1987 Jan Carlzon: Moments of Truth

1988 Joseph M. Juran: Planning for Quality

1988 Konosuke Matsushita: Quest for Prosperity

1989 Charles Handy: The Age of Unreason

1989 Christopher Bartlett and Sumantra Ghoshal: Managing Across Borders

1989 Stephen Covey: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

1990 Kenichi Ohmae: The Borderless World

1990 Michael Porter: The Competitive Advantage of Nations

1990 Peter Senge: The Fifth Discipline

1990 Richard Pascale: Managing on the Edge

1992 Tom Peters: Liberation Management

1993 Fons Trompenaars: Riding the Waves of Culture

1993 James Champy and Michael Hammer: Reengineering the Corporation

1993 Ricardo Semler: Maverick!

1994 Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahalad: Competing for the Future

1994 Henry Mintzberg: The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning

1994 James Collins and Jerry Porras: Built to Last

1994 Michael Goold, Andrew Campbell and Marcus Alexander: Corporate-Level Strategy

1995 Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence

1995 David Packard: The H-P Way

1996 Frederick Reichheld: The Loyalty Effect

1996 John Kotter: Leading Change

1996 Robert Kaplan and David Norton: The Balanced Scorecard

1997 Arie de Geus: The Living Company

1997 Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer: Blur

1997 Thomas Stewart: Intellectual Capital

1998 Patricia Seybold: Customers.com

This is too exciting for me! I was almost in the edge of my chair when I read this. Cringley should’ve been a CEO. I hope what he guessing is true!

“Here’s my thinking, and it is just thinking — I have no insider knowledge of Apple’s plans, I haven’t been diving in any Cupertino dumpsters, and nobody who knows the truth has told me a darned thing. I think the Mac Mini is a fixed component in a system that will extend iTunes to selling and distributing movies.

The first hint came to me a day or so before the MacWorld show when right at midnight my computer stopped playing Apple movie trailers. The only way to watch QuickTime movie trailers (the closest I get to a movie since we have little kids) was suddenly through iTunes 4.7, which takes you straight through the iTunes Music Store. The regular QuickTime player wouldn’t work. Apple had made no announcements, nor had they upgraded QuickTime, so I’d say it was a glitch that presaged the eventual replacement of that player for the selling of movies. Since then Apple fixed things and the QuickTime player now works for playing trailers, but I had already seen the future.

Now go back to Steve’s MacWorld performance, which you can see on the Apple web site. What the heck is Mr. Ando of Sony doing there? Nominally he’s sharing the stage to herald the ability of Apple’s new iMovie 5.0 to import high definition video from a new Sony consumer HD camcorder. Apple will also be selling the Sony camcorder online and in its stores. But you don’t get the head of Sony at your event just to sell camcorders. And Jobs explained it himself — it is the ‘Year of HD’ and nearly all of the year is yet to come. As he darkly hinted, we can expect further announcements.

It is simple to say that Apple hopes to repeat with video the success it already has with iPod and iTunes. Jobs denies interest in video, citing the dominance of cable companies, but then he always denies right up until the moment he changes his mind, and that moment is coming.

If Apple hopes to emulate its iPod/iTunes success, what does that mean? It means selling hardware devices and proprietary content to play on those devices. The first such hardware device is probably the Mini. And the proprietary content will be video encoded in AVC H.264, which will be supported first in OS X 10.4, promised for the second quarter of this year. So Apple can’t announce that it is in the movie distribution business until 10.4 (code-named Tiger) is available.

Remember Steve said this is the Year of HD. So one could expect that any video sold by Apple would be in high definition format. That gets around the supposed cable monopoly (there is no HD monopoly) and is suitably proprietary that Apple ought to be able to enforce its Digital Rights Management system.

The Mac Mini would look fine on, under, near, or generally around your TV. It has a DVI connector and so do many HDTVs, including those from Sony. Sony in its HDTV manuals says the DVI connector is “not intended” for connecting a computer, but it seems to work. That brings us back to Mr. Ando and my guess about the next Year of HD announcement or two. When OS X 10.4 ships, the Mini will suddenly become Apple’s version of a media PC. Like the iPod, it will be a simple device that serves proprietary content, in this case HD video. Just like Gateway, HP, and Dell before it, Apple will start selling in its stores HDTVs, only they’ll carry the Sony brand. Do you want to buy a Gateway TV or a Sony TV?

Now about that HD video content, Jobs was careful in his speech to point out more than once that there are two competing standards for High Definition DVDs — Blu-Ray and HD-DVD — but that H.264 is a constant on both systems. With movie studios divided between the two standards, this promises to be another VHS versus Betamax competition which means it will take two to three years for one standard to dominate, and in that interim devices will cost more than they ought to and will be coming later to market. Enter Apple and the Mac Mini, supporting every part of HD except a DVD standard, because one isn’t needed. The Mini will download its HD video over broadband Internet connections so no optical component is required. The result is that Apple once again gets to market early and has a chance to become the de facto standard, just like iTunes did. Blockbuster can’t compete with Apple until there are HD DVDs, and even digital cable doesn’t have enough channel capacity to offer as many pay-per-view HD movies as Apple will be able to offer on the first day of service.

The movie studios will play along, too. They already allow on-line distribution through MovieLink and comparable services, so that’s not a big obstacle. And Jobs, through his ownership of Pixar, is viewed as a movie industry player — an insider with as much to lose as any other producer if “Toy Story” is pirated. And of course there is the fact that every movie distributor — including Sony — wants to take over Disney’s role as Pixar’s distribution partner, giving Jobs and Apple even more leverage. I know that Pixar and Apple are separate, but I also know that Steve Jobs will play every card in his deck.

The correlation of HDTV ownership and broadband penetration is very high. People who own HD TVs for the most part don’t have HD movies. Movies are the key here, much more than HDTV, which is available for free over air (hence the lack of a tuner in the Mac Mini. Besides, viewers will tolerate non-real-time movie downloads — as long as they take less time than driving to Blockbuster and back — but they won’t wait for the evening news to download. It simply has to be about movies.

There are a couple outfits already offering what could be the software components of this system. Their names are almost identical — iFlicks and iFlix — and both seem to be in flux. It could be that iFlix is freaked by the movie studio crackdown on bitTorrent servers, but suddenly their downloads don’t download anymore while iFlicks has plain withdrawn its product from the market, leaving only mysterious messages on its web site. Both products manage well the organization and playing of videos on your Mac or PC. Either product could be the core of a new Apple movie service. I’m guessing that one or both have been — or are about to be — purchased by Apple.

Very nice essay by Paul Graham:

Let’s start with a test: Do you have any opinions that you would be reluctant to express in front of a group of your peers?

If the answer is no, you might want to stop and think about that. If everything you believe is something you’re supposed to believe, could that possibly be a coincidence? Odds are it isn’t. Odds are you just think whatever you’re told.

The other alternative would be that you independently considered every question and came up with the exact same answers that are now considered acceptable. That seems unlikely, because you’d also have to make the same mistakes. Mapmakers deliberately put slight mistakes in their maps so they can tell when someone copies them. If another map has the same mistake, that’s very convincing evidence.

Before you can discover your perfect job, you must find courage to dream a bigger dream. Explore the possibilities. What if you could earn a living doing something you’ve always wanted to do? What if you choose a job that’s fun, instead of demanding?

“Ask yourself the questions you’re most afraid to ask, and go after answers, even if it’s one baby step at a time,”…..

Realizing time is slipping away can inspire change. ……. Here are some tactics to help you make the change:

1. Face your fears.

You’ll be leaving your comfort zone as you explore new directions. You’ll need to develop short-term, intermediate and long-term goals, and decide on the steps you’ll need to accomplish them. Break these into smaller steps so your quest seems less frightening.

“Even the strongest of us can find ourselves bitten by the fear bug,”……. “Understand that fear isn’t a signal to stop, a red light. It’s a yellow light, telling us to proceed with caution.”

Learning more about your options can help reduce your fear. Ask yourself: What is within my ability to change, control or influence? Then give yourself permission to stop worrying about things you can’t control, so you won’t be devoured by fear.

Controlling your thinking also helps ward off the fear that accompanies moving into the unknown…… It’s easy to anticipate the worst: My family will starve, we’ll lose the farm, I’ll never work in this town again.

But by controlling your thinking, you also can visualize the opposite outcome — that you might gain pleasure and earn more money to do the things you love and care for your loved ones and have a more balanced life, she says.

There’s no yellow brick road leading to exciting new jobs, but you can choose to use strategies that can help you make a career change, however uncomfortable. “Recognize that change often looks and feels like chaos, especially at first,” ……

2. Separate pipe dreams from realistic goals.

Learn about marketplace and hiring trends. Identify expanding industries, downsizing patterns and outsourcing practices. Analyze how changing business practices affect job choices.

Be sure your desired field will support your standard of living. …… To learn more about pay and employment trends, find out what’s happening within and outside your company, speak with co-workers, read industry publications, and even consider volunteering in the new career or industry.

Be creative and design your dream career. Perhaps you’re meant to do more than one new thing simultaneously. “People will continue to have portfolio or potpourri careers where they may have two or three jobs at the same time,” ….. These can tap your skills, energize you with new opportunities, and help you combine what you love with how you earn a living.

3. Create stepping stones.

Consider taking assessment tests to discover your hidden talents and jobs that fit them, ….

You’ll likely find many ways to transfer your competencies and skills to your new role. Create a resume that clearly shows how your abilities apply to the job you want. “A generic resume probably will be highly ineffective in helping the job seeker switch careers or industries,” …… career changers to do their homework to determine the skills they need to qualify for a new job or enter a new industry. Network with business contacts, attend professional meetings and conduct other industry-specific research.

On your resume and in interviews, highlight personal and job-related skills that employers need. You’ll need to speak the jargon of the job and industry. And it’s always a good idea to cite your interpersonal, management, technological and communication abilities since these are always in demand.

If you lack required credentials, seek the training you need to bridge the gap. A willingness to learn new skills shows initiative. Since most jobs change constantly, emphasize how your work history, flexibility and creativity can help companies reinvent their own business strategies.

Emphasize unique skills that add value, …… Ask yourself: What would a new company get from hiring me? Would it get leadership, someone calm under fire, or a person gifted in guiding difficult transitions? Write an “elevator speech,” a 30-second personal introduction that sums up what you can do for employers. “Practice it so it becomes as natural as ordering a cup of coffee,” ……

4. Stay tuned into your needs and goals.

Expect to redefine your perfect job and career path as your personal circumstances change. “Life is a journey of change. We can either wait for the universe to thrust a needed change upon us or we can be active agents of change in our own lives,” ……

Instead of job security, think job resiliency. Career management nowadays means developing the skills and flexibility needed to quickly respond to shifting employer requirements. “Pursue what’s meaningful,”……You don’t have to make a dramatic change overnight. However, postponing pivotal career decisions too long makes them woulda-coulda-shoulda decisions.

What’s Next?

To relinquish security and embrace the unknown, you may need to make a leap of faith. But be prepared. Your initial changes may catapult you into cycles of interesting new possibilities.

Career Journal says:

The aging U.S. infrastructure, clean-water needs, and general economic growth are creating strong demand for experienced engineering talent. Ideal candidates have 10 or more years of experience, primarily in machine-product design and development or plant-facility work. The hottest roles are for civil, construction and architectural engineering professionals with five to 15 years of experience, say recruiters.

….the typical career path for engineering executives working in corporations: hired as a professional, then rising to management, to business development, to a regional executive job, to the top-executive level.

The US consumer electronics market is set to grow by over 11% in 2005. The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has predicted that shipments of consumer technologies in 2005 will reach more than $125.73 billion (nearly £68 billion). Teenagers get a new mobile every 11 months, adults every 18 months and a 15 million handsets are replaced in total each year. Yet, only 15% are actually recycled. This year, a predicted two billion people worldwide will own a mobile, according to a Deloitte report.

Is there an entrepreneur out there who can build a business out of this? I would like to see these electronics harvested for discrete components (capacitors, resistors, ICs) and sold to developing countries. With minimum post-processing, these gadgets can be profitably resold.

I remember the early 1990s television wave in India. Barron sold new color Akai TVs at rock-bottom prices, bought the old B/W TV sets from customers and then resold them to poor consumers in rural Bihar. They still made money at the end of the day!

“The Commerce Department is unveiling a new Web site focusing on technology-based economic development.

The agency said that its TBED Resource Center is designed to encourage the growth of technology companies and ‘build tech-based economies.’

The Web site includes more than 1,300 links to research reports, strategic plans and best practices from state and federal governments, universities researchers and think tanks.”

I am glad the MEMS industry is starting to address the “cost” aspects of developing MEMS. From my few years of experience in MEMS, I think this is a key uncertainty that needs to be addressed thoroughly for this industry to mature.

The MEMS Industry Group (MIG) announced today that it has received funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to continue its MEMS Cost Assessment Tool (MEMS CAT) project. SEMATECH, the leading consortium of the semiconductor industry and its subsidiary, the International SEMATECH Manufacturing Initiative (ISMI), have been chosen to modify their existing Cost Resource Model software for MIG. SEMATECH and ISMI have extensive knowledge in building cost models of ultra-complex processes for the semiconductor industry, and MIG relies on their experience to provide the CAT for the MEMS industry.

The MEMS CAT will be the industry’s first standardized tool for configuring the cost to develop and produce a MEMS device. While the CAT project determined that the tool was desired and feasible in the MEMS industry, this extension of the project will result in a fully functioning model for the MEMS industry.

Reliving some IIT lingo…..aaah..nostalgia!

Nabdu

This adjective describes all those who undergo a severe nervous breakdown before any exam, no matter how trivial. The identifying characteristics: they are always seen mugging. And you can catch them shuttling between hostel rooms, seeking answers to their list of doubts.

Ditch

This verb describes the course of action when you’re doomed. Picture this: its 4.00 am, you’re barely awake, book in hand, and an exam looming. Your Nabdu friend rushes in, saying you’ve missed the most important part of the syllabus. What do you say in such a situation? Ditch, yaar!

Give up

It’s that fragile state of mind just succeeding the ‘ditch’: “Mera give up ho gaya hai.” It can also be used as an adjective: “Tum log give up ho.”

Pain

It means exactly what it sounds like. Life is infinitely painful. Other usage includes “Comp pain maar raha hai” and “Is prof ke life mein kya pain hai?”

Crack

An exceptionally brilliant performance by anyone in anything. It signifies a sense of awe, especially when the cracku (person responsible for cracking) hadn’t tried too hard.

Junta

This goes back a long way. Junta stands for any collection of people. It refers to everyone and no-one in general. Its usage goes like: “Junta ko bata dena, ki kal class nahi hoga.”

Funda

Another word which has a loooong history. It stands for fundamentals and is much used: “Iska funda koi mujhe chamkayega?” or “Uske fundae (plural of funda) bilkul gol hai.”

Daya

One of the words that has infinite usage, daya stands for a lot of things. Roughly translated into English, it would come closest to ‘spare me.’ “Daya kar do�—when someone is boring you with his rendition of your favorite song which, of course, you can hardly bear. A longer form, dayaaaa, is used when you are informed of something really pathetic.

Fundoo

It is an adjective used to describe something really awesome: “Kya fundoo video hai.�

God

It is used to describe someone who has exceptional skills at something. Or the lack of it. Like: “Yeh time-pass karne mein God hai.’’

Here is an email I wrote today to help a doctoral student at a leading management school define his/her doctoral thesis:

Hi,

Thanks for your email and comments on my professional interests. I can definitely comment on your questions. However, I am sure you understand that I am in no way an expert in this fledgling industry. In many a sense, this industry is still the wild west, with technology homesteads being established by both established companies and startups. There is a healthy bit of skepticism around the very definition of ‘nanotechnology’. The recent spurt of interest and public funding to this field has led to many researchers and traditional industries rebranding themselves as ‘nanotechnologists’. For example, many companies in the ’specialty chemical’ industry, dealing with a single product (non-commodity) advertise themselves as nanomaterial industries. I’ve had an albeit brief but inside view into nanotechnology in lieu of being a graduate student developing ‘artificial muscles’ and interacting with academics and industry professionals in technical conferences. The latest gimmick seems to be to append the word ‘nano’ as a prefix to your traditional product to add a layer of marketing sheen.

Nanotechnology is as broad a definition as ‘Information Technology’. There are multiple companies in the whole spectrum and gamut of the ‘value chain’ or ‘food chain’ of nanotechnology. It is still too early to visualize a ‘nanotech’ driven economy. We are still amidst the Information Technology fueled transformation of the way we work, live and interact. The speed of percolation of nanotech related advances to the consumer products industry will determine the long-term viability and success of this industry. Visionaries and futurists will always tend to visualize and dream of the proverbial technological boon around the corner which will solve all the world’s problems. Nanotech is no different to this hype. An analogy would help to explain this. Before computers became widespread in the 1990s and the world wide web became ubiquitious, we’ve always had information technology. One can possibly trace the origin anywhere in the 1960s to 1970s depending upon your definition of what information technology is. My view of nanotechnology is somewhat similar. We are seeing the nascent bud of potential possibilities and promises of this technology. I am not too worried about the detrimental effects of nanotechnology. Mankind’s history has shown time and again that we will adopt any tool to enhance our life, (even though the tool’s all-round capabilities may not be all benign), as long as the beneficial effects atleast seem to overweigh the detrimental effects. There will always be naysayers and skeptics against any ‘progress’.

I would encourage you to read The Economist’s recent survey on Nanotechnology to get a more thorough and researched view on the path, potential, pitfalls and potholes on the road to Nanotechnology. Some of the venture capitalists who are active in funding nanotech companies also provide good insight into how this industry is evolving through their trained eyes. In some sense, they define the shape of the industry itself! I would very much recommend Steve Jurvetson’s blog, The J Curve for his insights into nanotech. By doing due diligence on the internet, you will be able to get access to more sources to other VCs.

Now coming to your specific questions on nanotechnology, my general feeling is that many a purported nanotech solution is simply an answer waiting for a problem. There is a long lonely road from the quirks of laboratory curiosities to commerical products. This evolution is brutal and will kill all but the most resilient of nanotech ideas. The success of nanotech will not be dependent on the coolness of the ‘nano’ technology at all. It depends purely on another field; ‘economics’ of the product being sold (or the service being offered).

I understand from your nanotech questions and your stated professional work that you are trying to define your doctoral problem. And it seems you are trying to marry a new technology on the block, ‘nanotechnology’ with the ways and means of getting it to work, the ‘operations’ part of it. While its an interesting way to approach defining a doctoral thesis, I would encourage you to think deeper by defining the very structure of this industry and imagining and/or extrapolating the direction of this industry and come up with connotations of real issues. For example, are you tacking problems in the ‘feeder’ industries to nanotech (specialty chemicals?), or are you trying to understand the sub-industry that supplies tools to nanotech? (e.g., KLA Tencor which supplies chip-making equipment to fabs and which could and are being used for non-fab but nanotech related work?). Or are you trying to address something as straight forward as machine-routing and flexible manufacturing systems within a custom batch processing nanotech facility like Zyvex?

Think about some of the chains of thought from the above and write back to me. I will be happy to assist you further to define your doctoral topic.

Also, a minor technical point that stared at me from your email. (MEMS is not exactly nanotech). You need to be careful in differentiating these deceptively similar but foundationally different industries. MEMS is a marriage of chipmaking technology and engineering (mechanical, electrical, chemical and electronics). Nanotech, atleast the spirit of the term as defined by Richard Feynman in 1970s, is being able to utilize the science at small scale to build engineering systems and products.

Good luck in your quest! I look forward to hearing from you again.

cheers

Raj

–

> Raj ,

> ……………………………I am interested in nanotechnology and aiming to work on

> production management of

> nanomaterial producing companies .I discovered your website while

> searching the net for nanotech related topics

> ………….

> It was a pleasant surprise to find someone interested in nanotechnology and

> OR .Do you have any information

> on the following issues —

> 1. Is there any company in US which is working on production / operations

> management in MEMS / nanomaterial industry ?

> Does anyone of them have any link to Indian companies ?

> 2. Does any US university have any course dealing wirth such issues ? RPI

> and Cornell are possibly involved in related fields

> though the websites do not provide sufficient details .

3. How are the economic aspects of production in nanotech oriented firms

> different from that in conventional electronic

> component / chemical producing companies ? Do nanotech processes involve

> unique OR problems which need unique solutions ?

> What are your views on these issues ?

…………………….

I think the question is not whether global warming exists or not. Rather, even if we do conclusively establish that global warming exists, can we do something about it? Should we be worried at all? Are there better problems to solve for which we should be devoting our scarce resources? Will we ever know the big picture about climate change? The following gives you a context on my thinking.

The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Available data on climate change is hardly a few centuries old and even civilization, as we know it, is only around 3000 years old. We’ve had multiple ice age cycles. The climate of the earth is never static. The present changing climate (even assuming the experts are correct in saying that it is changing) may be earth’s natural homeostasis.

Living organisms adapt to changing living conditions. With the burgeoning population, we are bound to affect the environment we live in. (why should this surprise anyone?) The answer is not a rollback into pre-industrialized world. The answer is not a full-stop on progress. The answer is not a change in our present livestyle. The answer is adaptation. The answer is evolution. We will need to accept life and the world and move on, and not worry about life decades and centuries down the line.

Nature is much more wise than we give her credit for. In our infinite hubris, we think we are changing the world, we think we control nature. In reality, we are just a speck of an actor in the infinite expanse of time’s stage.

Pretty interesting blog entry by Seth:

25,000 copies sold. That’s what it takes to make the #1 spot on the UK pop charts.

That’s 25% or less than what it used to take.

You can publish a New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller and sell just 5,000 copies in a week to reach the same milestone.

More and more, it takes less and less to be #1. That’s because the market is wider and flatter than in any time in history. In other words, the bestselling book, song, beer and car is ‘other.’

Delicious Library’s digital shelves act as a visual card-catalog of your books, movies, music and video games. A scan of a barcode is all Delicious Library needs to add an item to your digital shelves, downloading tons of info from the internet like the author, release date, current value, description, and even a high-resolution picture of the cover. Import your entire library using full-speed iSight video barcode scanner, Wireless Laser Bar Code Scanner, or (the slow way) entering the titles by hand. Once you have all of your items in your Mac, you can browse though your digital shelves, check stuff out to friends using Apple’s built-in Address Book and calendar, and find new items to read, watch, and play using Library’s recommendations.

Geeks never get it. Luckily I am a geek and an investor.

Apple makes a ton on selling the extras. Keyboards for $50, mice for a little less. What is going to happen when you have 1M people a week in your stores buying iPods or iPod add-ons, and they look over and see this ultra hot computer for $499. They are going to check it out. Doesn’t matter if eventually it prices the same as the iMac G5’s. The point is to spark their interest. Get them to buy the $499 computer and soon you are selling mice and keyboards and monitors. Consumers are dumb, and they don’t look at the overall cost. Its that entry point. A $1200 iMac isn’t going to catch their eyes, a $499 MacMini will.

I just love when geeks get wrapped up in marketing fluff. Oh gee the video card is weak. Well no kidding, its $499. Oh their aren’t enough USB ports, no kidding, its $499. The only decent gripe I have seen is the lack of Optical out. They did the TOSLink on the Apple Express, and there isn’t any reason they couldn’t have done it here. That in my mind would have pushed the idea that they are serious about entering the living room. But even that can be overcome with, thats right, more accessories, which, hmmm wonder if they will sell in their stores?”

Yes OS X is nice and all that, but OSX and iLife isn’t worth THAT much of a premium; and lets face it, beyond what comes preloaded on a Mac you are pretty much S.O.L. unless you install Fink and once you do that you may as well run the stuff in the native environment they were written for and use the occasional legacy Mac app via MOL under Yellowdog.

Which is the Apple problem, they are selling underperforming hardware at very premium pricing, hoping that a) the nice case and b) the couple of nice apps they artifically keep exclusive to their machines will justify the price. For a few arts crowd types it seems to be a fair deal but everyone else just shakes their heads and wonders ‘WTF?’ And apple stays in their assigned place, a niche 2% player waiting for the day when the Penguin passes them by and seals their doom.

If you think the Mac suffers a lack of 3rd party apps now, just wait until they aren’t the designated competition anymore. Of course none of this will matter to the faithful, who will keep right on buying whatever Steve declares to be ‘cool’ until there isn’t an Apple anymore, then they will read the latest rumors of who is buying the old Apple IP and promising to resurrect the platform…. remind you of anyone?”

Apple’s focus has shifted to perfecting the Human-Computer interface. This is what it was all about originally. They are focusing on the look and feel of products, both hardware and software.

Get the details right, and they will come.

The Mac Mini will be a perfect X-Terminal to use with a Linux box in another room. You’ll have a silent and small box on your desk and the fat and loud server is down in the basement. Great.

Another thing to note. A DIN slot (car radio standard size) is 2′x7′, the mini mac is 2′x6.5′.

If it had a radio faceplate and a laptop drive, this would be the best car stereo ever.

Say hello to *real* ‘Media Center’ Machine

(1) add a RAM stick BTO – cheapo

(2) add bluetooth BTO – cheapo

(3) add Wifi card BTO – cheapo

(4) sit unobtrusively to my way-cool existing TV and hook up A/V – nothin’

(5) hook to already existing wifi ADSL-powered network – nothin’

(6) bring in my already existing Sony-Ericsson Z600 – nothin’

(7) …?

(8) Profit!

Lemme see what I get from this:

(A) iTunes playback

(B) VLC playback

(C) DVD playback

(D) UNIX development

(E) Surf web

(F) Check mail

(7) Photo slideshow

(8) Remote control via Z600 (see 2,6,A,B,C,E)

All in the living room sitting comfortably on the sofa (see D)! Yay!”

“A Romanian couple was so grateful to have met on the internet that they have decided to call their son ‘Yahoo’.

The couple, Cornelia and Nonu Dragoman decided that they were made for each other after a 3 months relationship over the internet.

‘We named him Lucian Yahoo after my father and the net, the main beacon of my life,’ Cornelia Dragoman said.”

The ruling passion of the age is to convert wealth into debt in order to derive a permanent future income from it’ in the illusion that ‘people can live off the interest of their mutual indebtedness.’ Frederick Soddy, 1926