Paris, France

Before I talk about what happened in Paris, a very interesting thing happened on the way.. Me being the anal person I am, made sure that everyone in the group was aware that our train from Amsterdam left early in the morning and everyone managed to get up and get to the train station on time.. We got there about 25  minutes before our train so we felt comfortable but one member of our group (VK ROY) had some issues with his contacts and went to the washroom.. with 5 minutes before the train, VKR is nowhere to be found.. so we start wondering what happened to him.. we realize that Maryam (another travel partner) had VKRs passport AND train tickets.. and since we were crossing borders on train for the first time, we weren't sure what to expect.. the train arrives on the platform and still no sight of Mr. Roy.. so we delegate maryam to stay back since it didn't make sense for the entire group to miss the train.. we get into the train, after giving maryam all the contact info and other details she needed.. We see VKR running to the platform, grab his bags and run to the door just as it closes.. and we couldn't get it back open.. and we take off.. waving them goodbye.. luckily, they caught up to us in Belgium since our train was delayed and we were able to get back with the group..

So, we've arrived at city #3, the romantic capital of the world, La Belle Ville de Paris. And it certainly was love at first sight. It was beautiful in every sense of the word. I'm thinking i'm going to break Paris up into 2 posts as it's a city that just cannot be explained in one go.. I can't stress this enough but the beauty of the city is unparalleled.. We were lucky to get a hotel in paris instead of a hostel.. it was eventful because it was a boiling hot day when we arrived, and the gare du nord where we arrived was a 20 minute walk away from our hotel.. Ashita twisted her ankle coming out of the station so a few of us went to find the hotel and came back for the rest later.. We were exhausted with the delay but we wanted to get out quickly so we broke up into 2 groups.. decided to go check out the arc de triomphe..

The arc de triomphe was a moving experience. Just as we got there, there was a memorial for the soldiers who died during WWII and the architecture was brilliant.. The intricate artwork on every wall, and the stories that they said were incredible. I think what I will remember the most about the arc was getting there. The Arc is located in a concrete island in the middle of the city with nothing connecting to it..Being typical tourists, when we got out of the metro (subway), we saw people running across thru traffic and into the island in the centre so we figured that's the way to do it.. and when we did, we got pulled over by the cops.. Luckily Patrick and myself both spoke french so we were able to make small talk with the cops.. and they were uber friendly.. so much so that we ended up talking to them for about 20 minutes.. and they started suggesting places we should see locally.. One of the cops suggested we check out the cannes film festival to see stars like and I quote "jodie foster et tom cruise".. LOL.. the view up on top the arc was breathtaking.. personally liked it even more than the view on top of the eiffel tower.. not to mention, you have to work for it.. the arc does not have elevators so we have to walk up a few hundred stairs to get to the top.. but the view definitely makes it worth while..

I'm running a little late now, so i'll continue the rest of paris on my next blog update.. :)

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Welcome to the sex capital of the world. No, that's not what it read when we walked out of the train station but I could definitely feel it. Before I talk about Amsterdam, I have to say something about the travel from London. We decided to fly from London to Amsterdam instead of taking the Chunnel across the English Channel... We fly the cheapest airline we could find and that was Ryan Air. Now for those of you that don't know about Ryan Air, it is incredible. We paid a grand total of 0.01 pounds for our flight.. That's right, a penny.. We only pay the taxes which was about 25 pounds.. But to check in a luggage, it costs an extra 15 pounds.. The flight was YELLOW on the inside with no in-flight entertainment and advertisements on every seat.. No Jokes.. It was a tiny tiny flight flying from London's Stansted Airport into Eindhoven, Netherlands.. and yes, it is pronounced AIND-HO-VEN.. and we took a train from Eindhoven to Amsterdam.. I think i just like saying Eindhoven a lot.. LOL..

So our first experience in Amsterdam was getting gypped.. Yup, we got gypped by a cabbie who took 40 euros from us and drove us around for 20 minutes to drop us back off less than 5 minutes walk from where we started.. so we eventually ended up walking around and finding our hostel which incidentally was at the heart of the red light district with a view of a beautiful woman, sorry, a beautiful view OF a woman with red neon lights surrounding her. The walk to the hostel was through a few sex shows, and pretty much the entire road of red light windows..

We got a 3 hour walking tour of the red light district by new europe once again. (same as the one in london with Anna) and found out about cool things again.. did u know that the red light district began because of and later sponsored by the church?? (explains the church bells every hour in the district) Sailors would come to Amsterdam's port after months in the sea and would rape the women in the city so the church apparently started sponsoring and delegating women to be raped by these sailors. It later started charging the sailors who didn't wanna go back to sea with sin in their hearts. So the church would forgive their sins for a price. After a while, sailors started prepaying for their sins and would invariably go beyond what they paid for and would pay again on their way out from the prostitute's house.

While on the topic of the working women, it's important to know that taking pictures in the red light district is frowned upon and don't ever get caught doing it. No, the cops won't come after you but the girls will. if you think that's not bad, they come at you with a cup in their hands. The cup will have their urine.. and they will not hesitate throwing it at you. These women stand up for each other, and they dont tolerate jackasses. A lot of them do this to pay for their schools, to pay for their families and do it behind their parents backs. (they are all licensed and are of age..) If i remember correctly, they can rent a window for 8 hours for 200 euros i believe. The rates go at about 40 euros for a simple S&F.. (if u don't know what that is, then that's ur problem..) If you want anything extra, it will cost you.. typically 5 euros for her to act like she's enjoying it.. 5 euros to call u by ur name.. 5 euros for any prop use.. u get the picture.. bottom line.. don't mess with em..

Did you also know that marijuana is illegal in Amsterdam.. (it's only decrimanalized so it's ok to carry it and even sell it as long as it's under 5 grams) Did you know that the biggest gay bar in Amsterdam is called the cockring? (women are not allowed in and men who go in typically do not come back out with their clothes on) Magic Mushrooms are no longer tolerated in Amsterdam which wants to change the worldwide image of the city being too open.. How about the fact that the city has a history of looking the other way anytime a topic of morality comes up with the ideology that "if I don't know something's happening, then I don't have to fix it." This even had good effects when Catholics were protected during the protestant reformation, or protecting the jews from the nazis even when Amsterdam was under nazi control.

Since we only spent 2 days in A-Dam, we cudn't resist going to the infamous Heineken Brewery and man was that worth it. We went through the entire beer making process, tasted the hops, and the barley water, and the raw barley.. Bottled our own personalized bottle of Heineken.. yes.. AWESOME SOUVENIR... (along with some stropwaffles.. ask for details..) chugged 3 pints of beer in quick succession (including one ice chilled.. it was soo cool taht they actually had the whole tap covered in ICE..) and got back to the train station very very tipsy.. too much fun..

It's definitely one of those cities that leaves a lasting mark in your mind. The contradictions going hand in hand is something that I just never imagined.. How could the church and sex go together? how are drug related crimes lower than in countries with less tolerance? How does teaching kids about sex at the age of 4 result in lower teen pregnancies? It's all weird but somehow it all works...

London, England

As promised, I'm back on the blogosphere and i'm going to take you guys through a journey, rather my journey. I wanted to write about my experiences on this trip rather than just highlight the places I visited. I wanna take you guys through what I felt, the people I met, the little things that I found interesting, the big things that overwhelmed me rather than just give the typical tourist spot shpiel that we run into all too often on the interwebs.. So here goes..

The moment I stepped off the flight in Gatwick, I knew I was in the UK by the sheer number of turbans at the airport. If you think the Toronto airport was bad, wait till you see Gatwick. I slowly realized that the more I explored London, the less indians I saw, which quite honestly surprised me. The majority of people I ran into were in fact English.. who'd a thunk it right? Anywho, we went off to a hostel (for the first time) and realized that there was one bathroom for 10 of us, but we did share a room with some interesting people. The first person was Sabrina, who was an exchange student from Brazil working in Madrid, visiting london for the weekend. Later that night we actually went to a pubcrawl with Sabrina and her two portuguese friends who were a treat for the girls in our party. (Gustavo and ...sorry.. can't remember the other one.) The second bar we went to definitely took the cake with an AWESOME Live Band and beer for just 3 pounds.. yeah that's $6 but apparently that's cheap?? I took a break between the 3rd and 4th bars to go meet a friend's sister and realized I NEVER WANT TO LIVE IN THIS CITY... It was sooo crowded, i felt suffocated just walking around, not to mention constantly holding my own bum to make sure I wasn't being pickpocketed.. It was a miracle that I was able to locate the person in the middle of Piccadilly circus without ever having met them before, that too on a friday night..

Our hostel was conveniently located in South Kensington, about 15 minutes from Trafalgar square. We immediately jumped at the opportunity to get on those double decker bus (on the upper level of course).. We also stopped and grabbed pictures inside the infamous red telephone booths.. (couldn't resist) We spent the rest of the day just going to Trafalgar square, which we thought was Piccadilly circus until the next day when someone told us the place we went to was not really Piccadilly circus.. We also managed to get the most breathtaking view of London that first day on top of the London Eye.. In hindsight, it was expensive (17 pounds), but definitely worth the view..

If there's one thing that we did a lot of in London, it was museums.. and after 4 days, we realized that 4 days wasn't enough to see the museums in London. We realized that we could have spent 4 days in JUST the British Museum with the breathtaking Rosetta Stone... We managed to get a look at the Museum of Natural History (with the blue whale that could fit a few dozen elephants inside it), The Museum of Science and Technology, ( with gutenberg's printing press) The British Museum (with far too many things to count)...

I think that we were very lucky to find a free walking tour very early on this trip. Our guide, (hot with a british accent) was a history student born and brought up right in London gave us a 3 hour tour focused mostly on british royalty and their absurd torture tactics.. I found out where the term "a stiff drink" comes from and why I will never order one again. The stories of Guy Fawkes (V for Vendetta), Henry VIII, Why the celebrate all festivals but one in Trafalgar square, and many many more.. Some of these stories are common knowledge but others blew my mind away. Let's just say I gained new found respect for the Geneva Convention.. This respect only grew further after our trip to the Tower of London and actually seeing the place of torture and the crown jewels (the latter made up mostly of stolen jewels)..

On our final day in London, we met Merve from Istanbul, our roommate who replaced Sabrina. Merve and her colleague were on their way to northern england where she was taking up a residency to become a doctor. Merve was nice enough to give us a Turkish good luck charm that she promised would keep us safe for the duration of our trip and that we should have it on us the whole time. Sure enough, I kept it on me and still get questions to date on what it is and where I got it..

London taught me two things.. One, horses and humans cannot press the same button to cross a street and two, we should not try to see everything there is to see in a city because it's just not possible. Luckily we learnt early enough so we adapted.. Stay tuned for the wonders of the sex capital of the world..

I'm BACKKKK...

Hey guys,

i know it's been a while but i'm back.. and boy do i have stories to tell.. i thought i'd resume this blog but enlightening everyone about my stories from Europe.. It shouldn't be too long i guess.. One city per post, i'll be done in 9 posts.. so keep ur eyes open.. :)

Interview #2 Continued : Apple Inc.

So last week, I gave everyone an overview of my interview with Apple and everything that went right. This week, I'm going to tell you all the things that went wrong with the interview. After the hardware interview, I was very confident and sure enough I got the call for round 2 of Apple's drubbing. I wasn't told what the second interview would entail but I figured it would be software oriented. During that week is when I realized how important it is to ask as many questions as you can about the team that you are being interviewed for because it can give you valuable insight into what to prepare. I obviously didn't ask enough questions on what platform they work in? what language do they code in? What are typical issues they face? These questions would have given me some ideas on the follow-up interview questions but since I didn't ask them, I was clueless on what was going to be asked.

Once the interview began, I was bombarded right away with a lot of unix based questions. It started off with some some simple questions like "How do you calculate the space occupied by a directory in unix" and "What does the pipe command do?" Had I known that I had to review my unix stuff, I would have been better prepared to answer them but luckily i remembered the command that du is for disk usage so got that partially right. The follow up question was "How would you find the size of a directory if you couldn't use the du command?" I was lost and had no answer. We moved on to other topics. I was asked, "If you could design an OS, what kind of scheduling would you do?" I answered that i would turn to a pre-emptive priority based scheduling. He asked me to explain what that meant so i tried to BS my way into saying that each process is given a certain priority level and higher priority process pre-empt lower priority processes. He follows that up with, "Is there any time when your scheduler is working correctly but a lower priority process gets more time with the processor than the higher priority process?" Once again I was stumped coz I couldn't think of a scenario when this would happen, especially if the scheduler is designed correctly.

Given my inability to answer these questions, the interview ended prematurely, instead of running for a full hour, it only ran about 40-45 minutes and I knew things weren't looking good.. I hadn't heard back from Apple for almost 3 weeks and until I got another offer and I forced their hand, i didn't receive a response. Finally, last week, I got an answer from Apple saying that I wasn't experienced enough for this position and that I should get back in touch with them in a couple of years to see what happens. I guess the consolation was that they rejected me in a very nice way if nothing else so I certainly take solace in that..

Stay tuned for the Royal Bank Corporation interviews in the coming days and weeks.

Interview #2: Apple Inc.. No longer Apple Computers..

As promised, i'm giving you guys an overview of another big interview that I went through. This one was with the infamous Apple Inc based out of Cupertino, California. The interview was for the iPhone Power/Performance team. Based on the description of the job, it seemed like a job that has both hardware and software elements to it. The job entailed hardware analysis to see ICs that drain a lot of power, and find software solutions to optimize the system to use less power. Sounds fun doesn't it. Plus, had I gotten the job, I would have been able to brag that I work on the most successful smartphone of the last few years.. I guess you guys can conclude that I didn't get the job.. but I did get the 2nd interview.. so that means I did some things right..

For those of you that don't know.. I did 2 internships with RIM and worked on Power Management which is probably why I got this interview in the first place so most of their questions revolved around my experience at RIM.

One thing I came to realize with Apple is that they are interested in people who know their stuff inside out.. They don't want someone who displays potential, they want someone who HAS potential and they're very picky.. They don't beat around the bush.. The recruiters don't use flowerly language or emails that are a full page long.. they use 3 sentences to get to the point..

Here's an example..

"I'm one of the recruiters on the iPhone performance/power team and was really interested in your resume. The work you've been doing is very interesting and I'm sure the team would like to chat with you. When might you be available?"

or..

"Sounds like your first chat went well. If you are interested we'd like to have you chat with another person from the iPhone perf team

When is the next best day? Friday?"

As you can see.. they cut to the chase.. which I really haven't been doing in this entry so i'll start now.. let's cut to the chase and get to the questions..

Apple Inc.
Interview 1
Question 1: I see you've worked at RIM's Power team.. What did you do there?
Answer: This is a very open ended question and they want to see how detailed you can get from a technical standpoint. I was very in-depth in my answers. "I worked mostly in the lab automating power measurement for BlackBerry devices. Measuring voltage and current of different components and identifying Power Management ICs to be used in Next Gen BlackBerries."

Question 2: So u've worked with PMICs.. why don't u tell me what some of the components in a PMIC are?
Answer: Linear Regulators (LDO), Switched Mode Power Supplies(SMPS), I2C communication interface.


Question 3: Ok, you also said you helped pick out PMICs for next gen devices.. what are some of the criteria for picking them?
Answer: Size (Because mobile applications ahve a scarcity when it comes to board space) and efficiency (because mobile applications run on batteries with limited power capability). but there's a tradeoff because the more efficient power supplies (SMPS) are bigger and the less efficient ones (LDOs) are smaller..

Question 4: Very good point.. so u talk about LDOs and SMPS. Why are LDOs less efficient and Why are SMPS units bigger..
Answer: LDOs use a resistive network to bring down voltages, so you have loss to environment and heat dissipation while SMPS devices work with transistors that switch on and off really fast to produce the voltage and could theoretically reach 100% efficiency. The problem is that SMPS units require an extra inductor, so space wise, that adds to the size of the unit.

Question 5: Ok, I see that you talk about bringing down voltages. Is that all you can do?
Answer: No, you can use buck regulators to bring down voltages and boost regulators to bring up voltages too. But they can only be done in SMPS devices not LDOs.

Question 6: You've been giving very good answers so far and giving lot more detail than I need. Now something more specific. What do you think are the 5 biggest power consuming elements in the iPhone.
Answer: Processor, LCD, Radio, GPS, and Audio Speakers and Microphone..

Question 7: Great.. now can u organize those 5 in terms of most and least power consuming..
Answer: I would think LCD, Processor, GPS, Radio and finally speakers
Interviewer: close but the LCD doesn't consume as much as you think. I mean. it does consume a lot when it's on but over a period of time, the processor and radio are the biggest consumers..

Question 8: Do you know what a bypass capacitor does?
Answer: I know the term sounds familiar but I can't quite rememember.

The interviewer the explained what it was, and I knew that I had the answer somewhere in me but couldn't come to a conclusion.

So i screwed up two out of eight questions, not too bad.. I knew i did well enough in the hardware interview.. and I was confident..

I noticed that the interview was mostly based on my resume so i strongly urge you to not put anything that you don't know inside out.. they grill you on it and they question every nook and cranny.. The interviewers know their stuff so don't try to bullshit your way through it. If you don't know an answer, say that you don't know it. Don't try to make a fool of the interviewer coz they will point it out to you..

The next day I got a request for the second chat.. and sure enuff this one was going to be software based..

Stay tuned and i'll tell you what was in store for me.. I'll give you a hint.. I didn't follow my own advice.. LOL.

Interview Review #1: Microsoft

It has been a couple of weeks since I last blogged but I thought now is a good time to write about my last few months of interviews and my take on the current new grad situation. With the current economic situation, I didn't want to tempt fate by writing about my interviews until I found myself in stable ground. I guess this entry is just an outline of the numerous questions i've encountered in the last 3 months from various companies and positions. So i'm going to start with one interview review per day. This is by no means expert testimony. This is just how things happened for me and an expression of whatever little I know or make sense of the interview process. It's certainly not advice.. but perhaps an example or a case study.. The first review will be from Microsoft. I haven't actually done the second round interview yet, so this is just an outline of the initial screen.

Microsoft
1) Write code to determine the second last element in a linked list.
Ans: have two pointers one incrementing before the other and when one gets to the tail, return the element pointed to by the other.

2) Write code to determine is a linked list is cyclic.
Ans: Again, have two pointers, one incrementing by 2, and the other incrementing by 1. If the first pointer and second pointer point to the same element at any point after the initial increment, the list is cyclic.

3) If you could design an alarm clock, what features would you add and why?
Ans: Very subjective. I obviously included a snooze button, a USB interface for loading custom music instead of *beep beep* and a laser pointed to the ceiling to show time and make humans even lazier. (i.e, u don't even need to turn your head to look at the clock on your table)

4) What is one piece of software you really like?
My Answer: "If i have to pick a microsoft product..."
Interviewer: "It doesn't have to be a microsoft product. It can be any piece of software"
My Answer: "Google Search"
Interviewer: "Ooh.. wrong answer.. not because we're microsoft but because my follow up question is 'How would you make it better?' "

Don't fall into this trap the way I did. Don't pick a software that is obviously leaps and bounds superior to competition. I eventually gave an answer along the lines that Google Search needs category based searches. For example, search only medical website, or college websites.

Let it be said that my answers were good enough to get me to the second round. The key is to relate and communicate with the interviewer. Don't be uptight but don't be too loose either. It's about finding the balance and the comfort zone. The interviewer isn't your homeboy, but they're not there to kill you either. They are genuinely interested in hiring you, otherwise they wouldn't be there so be confident but not self-obsessed. Understand that there are people out there who know more than you but you have what it takes. The whole package.. Finally, never forget to think outside the box. As crazy as some of the ideas my sound, it may show the interviewer that you have creative potential. An alarm clock with a laser and USB interface is not new, but it's not common. The common answers will put you on par with the other one hundred candidates. The unique answer puts you ahead of them.

Tomorrow i'll cover another interview that I attended while it is still fresh in my mind.

Frequent Flier Syndrome

I never really understood why frequent fliers hated flying. In my mind, it was always like "why would someone not like traveling to new and exotic places, trying new things, seeing new sights and of course who can ignore eating new cuisines." Last week, I understood why.. I saw the light.. I was traveling for some interviews in Austin, Texas from Ottawa and I realized that even a short flight like this one could make a person hate traveling. Let me give you a scene by scene description of the events that unfolded.

Thursday afternoon at 12:00 PM : I take off from work to catch a flight that leaves Ottawa at 3 PM headed to Newark, NJ.. Yes, there were no direct flights and I had to take a connection. I get to the airport and check in and was ready at the gate by 1:15 PM for the 3 PM flight.

2:00 PM: Announcement informing that flight to Newark has been delayed by 2 hours, it is now scheduled to leave at 5 PM. I think to myself that this shouldn't be a problem as I have 4 hours between my flights in Newark so i'm still good for my connection

5:00 PM: Announcement informing that the flight has been further delayed by an hour due to air traffic control issues. I go up to the attendant, she confirms that I should still be able to make my connection in Newark.

6:00 PM: We board the flight (i'm happy), we get out on the tarmac ready to take off.. Pilot informs us that we're stuck for another 90 minutes ON THE TARMAC because Newark has not given them permission to take off as they have too many planes landing and don't have time for ours.

8:00 PM: After the scheduled departure of my flight in Newark, we leave Ottawa and reach Newark an hour later...

9:00 PM: I get out of the plane and ask the attendant immediately if my plane to Austin has left. She nods with a false sense of comfort.. I ask her if there are any other flights I can take out because I don't want to be late for my interview the next morning. She informed me taht the 8 PM flight was the last one to austin and there are no other options or routes to get there that night. She then tells me to go stand in line at customer service so they can put me up in a hotel room.

9:45: I get to the front of the customer service line where I'm being helped by a woman who acts like she's concerned about what's happening to me.. she re-iterates the fact that there are no flights out that day and that the earliest flight she can put me on was at 6:45 AM the next morning, which gets to Austin at 10:00 AM.. a full 2 hours after the scheduled start time of my interview.. I accept my fate and ask her where they're putting me up for the night.. she checks with another superior agent standing next to her who shakes her head in disapproval.. here's the conversation..

Agent: "sir.. this is the part of the job I hate.. and I hate to be the one to break this to u but since you are coming from Canada, and since flights from Canada are not considered to be international flights, we cannot put you up in a hotel for the night.."...

This is when I lose my cool..

Me: "I've been patient and accepting of a 5 hour delay in my home city, accepting of missing my connection and accepting of the fact that i'm going to be late to my interview.. and accepting of the fact that thanks to you guys, i'm not going to get a job.. but now ur telling me that I have to sleep in an airport chair??"

Agent: "I'm sorry sir but that's policy.."

Me: "Well I don't give a damn about your policy, you are putting me up in a hotel room tonight because I need a place where I can sleep and shower in the morning.. Your agent at the door told me that i'd be put up in a hotel and I better be put up in a hotel or you will have to face legal action for distress and economic turmoil.."

Agent: "The lady at the door told you we'd put you up somewhere."

Me: "Yes she did."

Agent: "Let me see what I can do."

5 minutes later.

Agent: "Alright sir, here's your hotel voucher, you can go ahead and go straight, there will be a hotel shuttle waiting to take you there."

11:00 PM: I get to the hotel room and find out that the loving and caring agent did not attach a meal voucher to my hotel voucher.. wonderful.. hotel staff were nice enuff to let me order pizza.. i order a medium pizza, and gulp it down 40 minutes later.

Midnight: I finally go to bed so I can wake up in 4 hours and go back to the airport to go do my interview.

6 AM: Get to the airport, check in, get to the gate and find my flight delayed by 30 minutes once again..

7:15 AM: Flight to Austin actually takes off and we were told to expect turbulence.. (no sleep for Raj)

10:30 AM: Land in Austin, and my baggage surprisingly arrives safely. Get to the rental car and rive off by 11 AM. (3 hours after start time.

11:35 AM: Show up at the office for my interview.. they were very happy to have me and had all my interviews rescheduled to accomodate the travel mishap.. (yes, i had kept them posted throughout to make sure they knew what was happening.)

------- ALL THE GOOD THINGS HAPPEN IN AUSTIN------------

FLIGHT BACK....
More delays, more pain.. My flight out of austin was delayed by an hour by guess what.. Air Traffic Control in Houston.. Get to Houston 15 minutes before my connection was set to leave.. run across the airport and board barely on time.. which by the way was the best thing that happened to me in the airport all weekend.. get to newark and find my flight to ottawa delayed by 2 hours.. get to ottawa 2 hours later than expected..

i don't wanna go into more details, but let me conclude with this..

4 days, 5 flights, 5 delays, 2 hotel rooms, 1 overnight layover, 1 fight with Customer Service... All for 1 interview

so the next time someone says "you dont understand the pain of frequent fliers..", give them the benefit of the doubt..

How Private Are You?

It's been a few weeks since I last blogged. I've been doing a lot of local traveling with interviews, family, friends and other things have been keeping me quite busy for the last 2-3 weeks but I finally found some time at work to write a little bit today.. I read an article a few weeks back where the founder of Google Sergey Brin was funding a company called "23 and me" which decodes your DNA and provides a mini-snapshot of diseases that you are genetically predisposed to. He published a blog where he identified that he had a much higher chance of being afflicted with Parkinsons. Knowing this can really help a person early in their life to alter their lifestyle appropriately to increase their chances of fighting back. The cost of decoding a DNA sequence cost as much as a million dollars a year ago to $5000 today.

This morning, I read another article in the NY Times called "The DNA Age" which identifies a Harvard Medical School study that decodes your DNA for free but the cost of doing this is that your genetic information is made public. Now, you are probably thinking, how dare they reveal my personal medical history and personal attributes to the whole world? I personally think that we are living in a world where privacy doesn't exist. Call me a cynic, but that's the truth. Google reads your mail, the gov't and banks see your money, the doctor/nurse/pharmacist see your health records.. they're all stored in a central database somewhere.. so what's wrong in you just revealing it yourself.. I would rather know that I am genetically predisposed to a heart attack than live my life with the false belief that my life is private and that no one knows the real truth about me.. The interesting question brought about in the article says that if you have an identical twin, both twins need to agree to share the information as the genetic information is a little too similar.. but in all other cases, when a person signs over the genetic data, it's property of the company "personalgenomes.org".. Imagine if your gene, along with a hundred thousand others can identify the exact sequence that causes alzheimers and parkinson's and could potentially prolong the life of millions in the future..

Last week, we faced some tumultuous times as a family after the passing of my 47 year old cousin. Cause: Heart Failure. If my DNA could have been used to identify common family traits, perhaps he could have been better prepared and lived a healthier lifestyle to stop this tragic event. I think that privacy advocates need to wake up and smell the air and realize that privacy is a myth and the sooner we accept that, the faster we can help future generations.

Warren Buffett - Man of Vision

I'm sure everyone knows who Warren Buffett is. As of 2007, he was the richest man in the world. His ranking fell to number two this year largely due to the financial turmoil in wall street. It's almost universally accepted that Buffett is one of the world's foremost authorities when it comes to picking stocks and when it comes to picking undervalued investments with huge future potential. He is one man who can single handedly calm down an entire nation of investors from imminent collapse. This is just what he did earlier today by putting down $5 Billion of his Berkshire Hathaway money to buy a chunk of one of the two remaining wall street banks, Goldman Sachs. I Know.. I know.. Goldman Sachs is no longer a wall street bank technically.. But the man's brilliance can be seen from a quote he gave 5 years ago when he called credit default swaps, and derivatives in general, a "time bomb" and "financial weapons of mass destruction" and directed the insurance arm of his Berkshire Hathaway Inc to exit the business. His argument was quite simply that “there is no central bank assigned to the job of preventing the dominoes toppling in insurance or derivatives”. Today, Credit Default Swaps have resulted in the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses and the virtual destruction of wall street as we know it.. The man's genius can be seen from 1 simple statement more than 5 years ago..

Buffett has been known to make investments in companies that are declining but with future potential. This was in the early days of berkshire hathaway and he has since moved to a different approach. He now follows a theory of investing in high quality business with competitive advantages. He called these advantages "moat" businesses as opposed to commodity businesses. In layman's terms, Buffett's investments often involved companies whose products are priced much higher than cost and have a niche market. A perfect example was his investment in Coca-Cola in the late 80's where he knew that people would be willing to pay more money for a drink labeled Coca-Cola even though cheaper drinks with similar taste was available. He called Coca-Cola a moat business. Conversely, he believed a commodity such as salt is not a moat business because people generally didn't care what brand of salt they bought.

He often said that diversification is not necessary in investment, contrary to popular belief. He believed that you only diversify when you don't know what your investing in to protect your losses. (I guess this is true for most of us commoners) His company Berkshire Hathaway in its glory days between 1977 and 1983 never owned more than 18 companies and never fewer than 8. This shows that they didn't invest in a lot of decent companies but a few great companies.

Two of my favourite quotes:

"I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty." - Warren Buffett

"It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head." - Warren Buffett on the value of Gold

An overview of the famous companies owned or partially owned by Berkshire Hathaway:
GEICO, Dairy Queen, Cort Furniture, American Express, Anheuser Busch (Budweiser), Coca Cola, Comcast, General Electric, Glaxo Smithkline, Home Depot, H&R Block, Johnson and Johnson, Kraft, Lexmark, Nike, Procter and Gamble, UPS, US Bancorp, Walmart, Washington Post, Wells Fargo.

Amazing to say the least..