Difference Between Copyright and Copyleft?

What’s the Difference Between Copyright and Copyleft?

Intellectual property is a valuable asset for your business and it’s important that you take the necessary steps to secure its protection. One type of intellectual property that a business can own is copyright. This gives the owner an exclusive right of the copyright material to reproduce, reuse and republish it. However, there is a school of thought that seeks to override copyright and allow anyone to modify specific pieces of work. This form of licensing is known as copyleft and is commonly used in relation to software development. 

Copyright- Copyright attaches automatically to original artistic works. Therefore, you don’t need to register the right. When an author or creator expresses the idea in material form, the work gains copyright protection. Accordingly, you don’t have to publish material work for it to be afforded protection under copyright law.

Copyleft- Copyleft, as the name suggests, heads in the opposite direction to copyright. Playing on the word ‘copyright’, copyleft overrides copyright and promotes the concept that materials should be:

freely used, copied and modified by others.

Copyleft also requires that all versions of the material that users modify are freely accessible so that others can use and modify it. 

The principles of copyleft are commonly used within the software industry, where source code is often free for anyone to modify.

Britain Has Never Faced Up to the Shame of Empire

Nearly half of Brits think we should be proud of our colonial heritage.

Ministers have had a tough time working out who Britain's new trading partners will be after it leaves the EU. At one point it was reported that the British government was hoping to reach out to countries that were once part of the British Empire. The idea is that, now the blood has dried and the dust from the cannonballs settled, the nations of the Commonwealth will be only too happy to jump into a vigorous new age of trade with their former colonial master. Some civil servants doubted this, dubbing the government's plans "Empire 2.0". 

On the same morning these plans for a colonialism reboot were announced, I spoke to Shashi Tharoor, an Indian MP and the author of a new book, Inglorious Empire. The book details the enormous economic damage done to India by the Empire, takes apart the hypocritical notion that some of what the British did in India was for "the good of India", and calls for an end to the monumental ignorance surrounding the subject.

Tharoor laughs when I ask him about Empire 2.0: "Well, Empire 1.0 was a bad idea, to put it mildly. Why would you want a second version?" And yet, to listen to several leading members of the British government and to the fantasies of Britain's great importance conjured up during the Brexit campaign, a second version of the empire is exactly what a lot of people want.

It's understandable, in a way. Once upon a time, the sun never set on the lands Britain controlled. Those nostalgic for empire still dream of having the union flag ironed by a Nigerian servant, or getting an Indian boy to make them a nice, cool G&T.

It all seems so much more appealing than the decline and desperation we face now. Never mind that approximately 35 million Indians died because of famines caused by British misrule, or that Winston Churchill blamed one of these famines on the "beastly" Indians for "breeding like rabbits". Never mind that 5.5 million Africans were taken into slavery and the concentration camp was invented by the British Empire.

These imperial crimes – and many more – are either not known or glossed over, lost in the tide of colonial nostalgia and the fog of ignorance. During the EU Referendum campaign, the idea of "sovereignty" came to simply mean "making Britain great again", or, in the words of the Brexit camp, "taking back control". The Conservatives' "strong and stable" election mantra has an imperial ring, too, the conjuring up of something old, something dominant, something seaworthy

This longing for a return to greatness, combined with a lack of shame, was expressed in characteristic fashion by Boris Johnson when he said that the continent of Africa "may be a blot, but it is not a blot upon our conscience. The problem is not that we were once in charge, but that we are not in charge any more". In September of 2015, David Cameron told the Jamaican parliament that it needed to "move on from the painful legacy of slavery", before announcing his government's plan to build a £25 million prison on the island.

Sentiments like Johnson's were repeated again and again. "Now that's what I call winning!!! Well done Team GB & all our Commonwealth friends, now for Trade agreements," tweeted Conservative MP Heather Wheeler at the end of the Olympics, along with the slogan, "Empire goes for gold".

In the mind of Heather Wheeler, a sitting MP, it's as if, across Britain's former colonies, bright-faced sports fans were punching the air, shouting, "For Queen and country!"

Much of the public are with her. In January of 2016, a YouGov poll found that 44 percent of Britons (and 57 percent of Conservatives) thought their country's "history of colonialism" was something to be proud of, and 43 percent thought the British Empire was a "good thing".

"The polls didn't surprise me", says Paul Gilroy, author of a number of landmark books on race and empire, "because we're dealing with a politics of almost total ignorance in these matters." 

While ignorance is often blamed on individuals, in a sort of, "Just read a book, you dumb bastard" kind of way, Gilroy talks about a manufacturing of ignorance that keeps the people of this country from learning about Britain's imperial past. Schools teach Tudors and Nazis. The man on the street shouts about "One World Cup and two World Wars." We remember the concentration camps of Nazi Germany, as we should, but we are not taught about the British concentration camps of the Boer War, nearly 50 years before.

Nor are we taught about the massacres, the famines, the slave ships and the prisons, or that the Empire was a system of wealth extraction in which the lives of millions of people were disregarded in favour of the greed of the British nation and those who served it. That millions of Africans were forcibly taken to the Caribbean colonies by British slave traders, that the wealth they extracted came at a horrific cost and that while that wealth continues to flow through British society today, its extraction is still keenly felt in the islands of the West Indies. Or that, when it was all done and the British were erratically carving up their empire into new nations, imperial officials attempted to obliterate the truth of what had happened during empire through the systematic destruction and burning of official documents. In Delhi, this destruction went on for so long that the smoke from the fires hung above the Indian capital.

When a conversation about the British Empire does happen, it is so often defensive or triumphalist. Niall Ferguson, a man who wrote a book called Civilization: The Six Killer Apps of Western Power – yes, he means "apps", like on a phone – has sold more books on empire than any other recent British author. He is, as Shashi Tharoor puts it, a "booster for empire". His sophisticated flag-waving comforts readers who don't seem to be able to handle the idea that the country they are from is not 100 percent awesome.

This guilt is paralysing. Paul Gilroy points out that Freud associates guilt with melancholia, which the psychoanalyst described as a shameless condition, one that relates to the passing of something that cannot be fully understood and thus does not lead to positive change. Melancholia is related to mourning – the loss of empire is painful but it cannot be processed because, as Gilroy says, "Britain might learn too many uncomfortable truths about its history if it was known and considered".

Shame, for Gilroy, is far preferable to guilt because it can be catalysing – a stimulus to action. "Guilt is useless, counterproductive and usually just a source of resentment," he tells me. "Shame, on the other hand, is an appropriate response that can turn people towards the possibilities of redress and reparation."

In Warsaw, in 1970, then German chancellor Willy Brandt joined a commemoration to the Jewish victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, dropping to his knees in an act of humility and penance. As a socialist, Brandt had been an enemy of Nazi Germany and had been imprisoned for his political activity. He bore no personal responsibility for that government's crimes, but he recognised that as his country's leading representative, he could do something, and that, as he wrote in his autobiography, he was, "Carrying the burden of the millions who were murdered."

Such a response in Britain seems unlikely to happen, partly because many Brits do not know about – or refuse to accept – the darkness of empire. Last year, Conservative MP Liam Fox tweeted that Britain "is one of the few countries in the European Union that does not need to bury its 20th century history". Post-Brexit, Fox is now a cabinet minister, in charge of international trade – hardly the place you want an empire booster.

This gung-ho attitude to empire has spread much further than the corridors of power. Its legacy is still all around us.

In September of last year, a drinks consortium planned to open a "high-end rum bar" called Plantation. It wasn't until Black Activists Against Cuts stepped in and pointed out that plantations were "places where people suffered and died, where Africans suffered unimaginable violence and terror at the hands of their slave masters" that it was renamed Burlock. 

There is already a Plantation Bar and Grill, though. It sells "unbelievable American soul food" and features "distressed wood". It has a "Philosophy" section on its website. It's in Wigan.

In another fitting piece of colonial nostalgia, the East India Company rides again as a seller of "exquisite loose teas and rich coffees; artisan sweet and savoury biscuits; a luxurious chocolate range; vintage and exotic jams, marmalades and mustards…" Their website is foggy about the mass slavery needed for the company to function during the colonial era, or the devastating famines it created by exporting crops rather than feeding people.  

In 1948, the British Nationality Act established the principle of "Civis Britannicus Sum": that anyone born in the empire had the rights of British citizenship. As a result, former subjects of the British Empire came to the motherland as supposedly equal citizens. In response to the racism faced by Britain's former colonial subjects, the phrase "We are here because you were there" became a striking anti-racist slogan.

This remains largely untaught in most British schools – something history teachers across the country discuss. "In my view, there is a woeful lack of engagement on this topic across the curriculum in British schools, considering its importance to both British and world history," says William Bowles, head of History at St Mary Magdalene Academy in north London. "A common complaint from students is, 'Why do we never learn about black history?' And I have to tell them that there isn't much of an option to teach this on the curriculum."

To challenge this lack of public education, Jeremy Corbyn has said that the British Empire should be taught in schools, and various alternative groups are setting out to raise the public's awareness of Britain's colonial legacy. Organiser Elsie Bryant tells me that her project, "British Empire State of Mind", will take a nuanced approach and "help provide some context for what's going on in the world today, in terms of global inequality, poverty and how Britain helped create the conditions that caused and continue to perpetuate it now".

Projects like these are important, not just for the history lesson, but as a tool to understand Britain's current economic and political situation. Post-colonial British governments have shown a fondness for playing the white saviour in countries which need to be "saved", offering "aid" and "development". But it's not an accident that Britain is wealthy compared to its former colonies. The trade, natural resources and labour that could be gleaned from Britain's colonies turned it into a rich nation. At the beginning of the 18th century, India's share of the world economy was 23 percent. By the time the British left, it was a little over 3 percent. The money taxed, looted and traded out of India was used to fund the industrial revolution and the transformation of Britain into the world's pre-eminent imperial power.

Some of the ill-gotten gains of empire even came from a massive compensation package – £16 to £17 billion in today's money, or 40 percent of all government expenditure in 1834 – paid, after the abolition of slavery, to slave owners (slaves were given nothing). As UCL's Legacies of British Slave-ownership project discovered, around 46,000 individual claims and awards were made to those who "either owned slaves or benefitted indirectly from ownership".

Despite the vast effect the empire has had on our lives "we've never", as Paul Gilroy points out, "developed a way of talking about the imperial past and its crimes that allows us to see it for what it is". If we can't escape fantasies of empire, if we can't learn about what really happened in the name of the British crown, we will never be able to imagine a new identity for our country, an identity that can speak more fully to the multicultural nation we have become. Our current trajectory, careering away from Europe with some puffed-up idea about our own importance, is undoubtedly a result of this failure of education, to face up to our crimes and demonstrate humility.

Source: vice.com

What Is Difference Between Mist, Fog, Smog, Haze And Vog?

There are a lot of different names for that stuff that causes reduced visibility—and an agonizingly long commute—in the morning. Mist and fog are caused by water droplets in the air, and the only difference is how far you can see. Haze is the reflection of sunlight off air pollution, while smog is what happens when pollution causes low-lying ozone. And vog only happens when a nearby volcano is releasing sulfur dioxide into the air to react with you look out of the window in the morning, and it looks like the clouds have settled in your front yard. There are a couple of different terms to describe this weather phenomenon; some versions of it can be downright deadly.

Mist and fog both occur when there are water droplets in the air. When warm water in the air cools quickly, the droplets change from invisible to visible. When it comes to the airline industry’s definition of fog, they use the guidelines of not being able to see more than 1,000 meters (3,280 ft), although the civilian definition of fog is when visibility is less than 200 meters (650 ft). That might not sound like much, but when it comes to your morning commute, a visibility of only 50 meters (165 ft) will slow everyone down enough to cause major delays.

If you can see farther than that, it’s considered mist.

There’s also a wide variety when it comes to the different types of fog. Radiation fog happens when the temperature is cold and there are no winds. When the land cools, the air become less able to hold moisture and water begins to condense in the air. This is the fog that happens on early winter mornings, which is burned off when the Sun comes out.

Some types of fog only occur over certain geographic formations. Valley fog is, as its name suggests, the fog that fills a valley—it’s unique because it can last for several days because of the topographical layout that interferes with its disappearance. Upslope fog happens on hillsides, and coastal fog (unsurprisingly) happens around the coast.

When fog forms ice crystals over surfaces, that’s freezing fog. It can be caused by evaporation fog, which happens when cold air passes over warmer water or wet land; it can be contained over areas like backyard swimming pools or hot tubs.

And advection fog happens when wet air moves over a cooler surface and water droplets condense as the air is cooled.

While mist and fog occur when water droplets hang in the air, haze happens when the particles in the air are pollutants. Most of the time, haze occurs in areas far from the original source of the pollutants, which are carried by wind currents to where they ultimately gather. Haze forms when light reflects off airborne pollution particles and interferes with visibility. In some places—like the eastern United States—haze that’s settled over national parks can reduce visibility from as much as 150 kilometers (90 mi) to as little as 25 kilometers (15 mi). Some naturally occurring sources of haze include smoke particles from fires, but the pollutants are more often man-made.

The term “smog” was first coined in the early 20th century in London to describe the low-hanging pollution that covered the city. Smog is the stuff that will make you cough and burn your eyes—that’s because it’s majorly made up of ozone. When certain pollutants enter the air—like nitrogen oxides—they react with the sunlight to form ozone. It’s a good thing when it’s high up in the atmosphere, but not so good when we’re breathing it. It can cause everything from eye irritation to chronic asthma and can also severely impact the productivity of agricultural areas.

Vog is a specific type of air pollution that comes only from volcanic activity. When a volcano erupts—or begins to erupt—it releases sulfur dioxide which then reacts with the other gases that are already in the air. When lava reaches the sea, it also reacts with the water to produce other chemicals like hydrogen sulfide. The resulting “fog” is called vog and can mean anything from severely reduced visibility to adding a mild, blue-grey tint to the landscape.

Source: knowledgenuts.com

How to get the most out of nap time

Ever have a nap and wake up still sleepy and feeling unproductive? Even worse, are you waking up groggy and even more tired than when you started? That's because you're doing it wrong.

Luckily Linda Baumgartner, a sleep expert with mattress manufacturer Vita Talalay, has presented some scientific tips for quality nap time on Quora.

Here are some tips for taking a nap.

1. Set your mind into thinking that you are going to nap in order to be more productive. This will help you feel more alert when you wake up.

2. It is recommended to take a nap after lunch time. Doing it in the evening will most likely make you more sleepy. This is because in the evenings there is a higher chance of falling into deep sleep, which is something you want to avoid while taking a nap.

3. Ever felt more tired than you were before taking a nap? This is why it is recommended to take a 15 - 20 minute nap. The longer you sleep, the higher the chance that you will feel more tired when you wake up. Do not go over 30 to 40 minutes or you might enter deep sleep and create what is called sleep inertia, which will make you feel more drowsy and groggy when waking up.

4. Eat food that promotes a good nights sleep. This means avoiding food that are high in acid, sugar and fat. It is also recommended to avoid large quantities of caffeine or alcohol. Instead, eat food with sleep inducing nutrients such as bananas, oatmeal or a warm cup of milk. Eating food that is naturally high in magnesium, potassium as well as tryptophan, can help improve taking a nap.

5. Create a good atmosphere for you take a nap in. Find a quiet room and a comfortable sofa or bed, where no one can disturb you. Turning the lights off in your room will also help you fall asleep faster and better.

6. If you are having problems taking a nap, try relaxation techniques before going to bed, such as yoga. This can help calm your body and even mind before going to sleep.

Adapted from Cnet and Quora

101 Greatest Quotes About Success and How to Achieve It

Let these smart thoughts inspire you and motivate you to power through whatever is blocking your path to success.

1. Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. --Winston Churchill

2. There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. --Logan Pearsall Smith

3. You have brains in your head
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose
You're on your own.
And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go. --Dr. Seuss

4. The obstacle is the path. --Zen saying

5. Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them. --Vaibhav Shah

6. Success? I don't know what that word means. I'm happy. But success, that goes back to what in somebody's eyes success means. For me, success is inner peace. That's a good day for me. --Denzel Washington

7. Opportunities don't happen. You create them. --Chris Grosser

8. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered. --G.K. Chesterton

9. It is the part of a wise man to keep himself today for tomorrow, and not to venture all his eggs in one basket. -Miguel de Cervantes

10. To please everybody is impossible; were I to undertake it, I should probably please nobody. --George Washington

11. Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value. --Albert Einstein

12. It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. --Charles Darwin

13. Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. --Eleanor Roosevelt

14. The best revenge is massive success. --Frank Sinatra

15. A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him. --David Brinkley

16. No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. --Eleanor Roosevelt

17. If you're going through hell, keep going. --Winston Churchill

18. What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. --Oscar Wilde

19. The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. --Bruce Feirstein

20. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. --John D. Rockefeller

21. Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. --Nathaniel Hawthorne

22. If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. --Albert Einstein

23. There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. --Ray Goforth

24. Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. --Arthur Ashe

25. It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself. --Hyman George Rickover

26. Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. --John Updike

27. Eighty percent of success is just showing up. --Woody Allen

28. Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so. --Philip Dormer Stanhope

29. In the field of observation, chance favors the prepared mind. --Louis Pasteur

30. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. --Eleanor Roosevelt

31. One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. --A.A. Milne

32. The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it. --Thucydides

33. Fortune favors the brave. --Terence

34. One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. --Will Durant

35. It takes less time to do a thing right than it does to explain why you did it wrong. --Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

36. The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing. --Jean Cocteau

37. No one ever gets far unless he accomplishes the impossible at least once a day. --L. Ron Hubbard

38. Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. --John R. Wooden

39. Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. --Thomas Alva Edison

40. Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

41. It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god. --Seneca

42. Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. --George S. Patton

43. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain. --Robert Frost

44. The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. --Ellen Parr

45. With self-discipline, most anything is possible. --Theodore Roosevelt

46. It is not enough to be busy.... The question is: What are we busy about? --Henry David Thoreau

47. The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. --Ben Stein

48. All good things which exist are the fruits of originality. --John Stuart Mill

49. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. --Cecil B. DeMille

50. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. --Paul Valry

51. No illusion is more crucial than the illusion that great success and huge money buy you immunity from the common ills of mankind, such as cars that won't start. --Larry McMurtry

52. Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines. --Satchel Paige

53. You'll always miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take. --Wayne Gretzky

54. There is hardly anything in the world that some man can't make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price only are this man's lawful prey. --John Ruskin

55. The dreadful burden of having nothing to do. --Nicolas Boileau

56. Some people believe that holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go--and then do it. --Ann Landers

57. It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. --Confucius

58. I learned much from my teachers, more from my books, and most from my mistakes. --Anonymous

59. A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. --Sir Francis Bacon

60. If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. --Abraham Maslow

61. Measure twice, cut once. --Craftsman's aphorism

62. Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash. --George S. Patton

63. Formula for success: Underpromise and overdeliver. --Thomas Peters

64. What is harder than rock, or softer than water? Yet soft water hollows out hard rock. Persevere. --Ovid

65. Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater. --William Hazlitt

66. If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants. --Sir Isaac Newton

67. The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. --Vince Lombardi

68. In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves ... self-discipline with all of them came first. --Harry S. Truman

69. The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. --Anonymous

70. When in doubt, win the trick. --Edmond Hoyle

71. I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. --Woodrow Wilson

72. They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. --Andy Warhol

73. It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it. --Arnold Joseph Toynbee

74. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. --Ayn Rand

75. Know from whence you came. If you know whence you came, there are absolutely no limitations to where you can go. --James Baldwin

76. There is no disinfectant like success. --Daniel J. Boorstin

77. Nothing succeeds like success. --Alexander Dumas

78. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. --William Shakespeare

79. The secret of successful managing is to keep the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven't made up their minds. --Charles "Casey" Stengel

80. A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can. --Michel de Montaigne

81. Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth. --Will Rogers

82. One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. "Which road do I take?" she asked. "Where do you want to go?" was his response. "I don't know," Alice answered. "Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter." --Lewis Carroll

84. Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon. --E.M. Forster

85. If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention than to any other talent. --Sir Isaac Newton

86. Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. --Gloria Steinem

87. Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. --Auguste Rodin

88. What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

89. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. --Samuel Smiles

90. One thing life taught me: If you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. --Eleanor Roosevelt

91. To do good things in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning to your life. --Robert Browning

92. You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by step, whether it's friendships or opportunities. --Barbara Bush

93. During my 87 years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think. --Bernard Mannes Baruch

94. When clouds form in the skies, we know that rain will follow but we must not wait for it. Nothing will be achieved by attempting to interfere with the future before the time is ripe. Patience is needed. --I Ching

95. Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too can become great. --Mark Twain

96. A good solution applied with vigor now is better than a perfect solution applied 10 minutes later. --George S. Patton

97. Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the next important thing is to know when to forgo an advantage. --Benjamin Disraeli

98. The manner in which a man chooses to gamble indicates his character or his lack of it. --William Saroyan

99. If you wish in this world to advance
Your merits you're bound to enhance;
You must stir it and stump it, and blow your own trumpet.
Or trust me, you haven't a chance. --Sir William S. Gilbert

100. You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometime you might find you get what you need. --Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

101. Clear your mind of can't. --Solon

Source : inc.com

A Man Who Made 30 Crore From Nothing

He could just pass 10th. He was jobless. Nothing too much in the name of assets.

He reached Mumbai is search of job. It was not a great start for him. He was looted outside the Bandra station for the only rupees 200 he had and other belongings. He lost everything excluding the clothes he was wearing.

The most unfortunate thing was that he was robbed by the person who accompanied him to Mumbai and promised a rupees 1200 per month job. Because he feared that his parents would not allow him work in Mumbai, he came to Mumbai without informing them.

Before coming to Mumbai, he worked in Chennai and earned rupees 250 a month. He would send the money to his family in Nagalapuram Village located in the Tuticorin district of Tamilnadu. His family included his parents and seven siblings.

At Bandra station in the year 1990, a 17 year old boy who had nothing, except determination.

He did not understand Hindi. Feeling pity about his situation, a Tamilian took him to a temple and appealed visitors to contribute money and arrange a ticket for him to Chennai.

But the 17 year old boy, Prem Ganapathy, was damn sure that Mumbai is going to make his life.

After bit of effort, he got a job of washing utensils at Mahim Bakery. He would earn rupees 150 per month. He continued working at several restaurants to earn and save.

In about two years, he saved some money to start his own business of selling Idlis. He hired a handcart for rupees 150 per month rent and bought some utensils along with a stove for rupees 1000. It was year 1992, when he started operating his business outside Vashi railway station.

After doing it all alone for some time. He felt the need for some manpower as his business grew. He brought two of his younger brothers to Mumbai. He ensured hygiene at the eatery and they all wore a cap. This was a surprise for his customers as roadside eateries did never care about this.

Local authorities seized his cart on many occasions and he had to pay penalty to get it back as such carts did not get a license. In few years, he saved some money and leased a shop by giving rupees 50000 as deposit. They paid a monthly rent of rupees 5000 and also hired two additional employees. His streetside cart was now a small restaurant.

Many of his frequent visitors were college students and he made good friendship with them. He learned using internet from them and started looking for recipes on internet. He started experimenting with dosas and in the first year itself, introduced 26 new dosas like Schezwan Dosa, Paneer Chilli Dosa and Spring Roll Dosa. By 2002, his restaurant had 105 varieties of dosa and earned a lot of fame.

However, he always dreamt of having an outlet in a mall. He approached many malls but his offer was turned down as they were reserved for big brand like McDonald’s etc.

But he got an opportunity to open his outlet in the Center One Mall at Vashi. He got the opportunity because the managerial staff at the mall were frequent visitors to his restaurant. His outlet in the mall was a big success and people started asking for business franchisee. He agreed to the offer on a condition that all the ingredients will be provided by them.

In year 2012, they had 45 restaurant across 11 Indians states and 7 at foreign nations like New Zealand, Dubai(U.A.E), Muscat(Oman). Everything under the name of The Dosa Plaza.

The man who was standing outside Bandra station without a single penny with him in 1990, had set up a brand and empire of 30 crores in 2012.




Source: kenfolios.com

Famous Quotes from India's former President - Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam

“An indomitable spirit stands on two feet.. vision and firm thought.”

“Man needs difficulties in life because they are necessary to enjoy the success.”

“You have to dream before your dreams can come true.”

“If you want to shine like a sun. First burn like a sun.”

“Without your involvement you can’t succeed. With your involvement you can’t fail.”

“Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.”

“Excellence is a continuous process and not an accident.”

“Suffering is the essence of success.”

“Dream is not that which you see while sleeping it is something that does not let you sleep.”

“It is very easy to defeat someone, but it is very hard to win someone”.

10 Brainteasers To Test Your Mental Sharpness

To test your mental acuity, answer the following questions (no peeking at the answers!):

1. Johnny’s mother had three children. The first child was named April. The second child was named May. What was the third child’s name?

2. A clerk at a butcher shop stands five feet ten inches tall and wears size 13 sneakers. What does he weigh?

3. Before Mt. Everest was discovered, what was the highest mountain in the world?

4. How much dirt is there in a hole that measures two feet by three feet by four feet?

5. What word in the English language is always spelled incorrectly?

6. Billie was born on December 28th, yet her birthday always falls in the summer. How is this possible?

7. In British Columbia you cannot take a picture of a man with a wooden leg. Why not?

8. If you were running a race and you passed the person in 2nd place, what place would you be in now?

9. Which is correct to say, “The yolk of the egg is white” or “The yolk of the egg are white?”

10. A farmer has five haystacks in one field and four haystacks in another. How many haystacks would he have if he combined them all in one field?

Answers
1. Johnny.
2. Meat.
3. Mt. Everest. It just wasn’t discovered yet.
4. There is no dirt in a hole.
5. Incorrectly (except when it is spelled incorrecktly).
6. Billie lives in the southern hemisphere.
7. You can’t take a picture with a wooden leg. You need a camera (or iPad or cell phone) to take a picture.
8. You would be in 2nd place. You passed the person in second place, not first.
9. Neither. Egg yolks are yellow.
10. One. If he combines all his haystacks, they all become one big stack.

Okay, some of these are a bit corny. But they all illustrate several brain idiosyncrasies that affect how we make decisions in the world.

Thanks to the way our brain works, we have a very strong tendency to see what we want to see and what we expect to see. This has huge implications when studying our customers, markets, competitors, and other data that influences key business decisions.

When we only see what we want or expect to see, we miss competitive threats because our brain tells us a threat couldn’t possibly come from that direction. We miss opportunities because we only see what has worked in the past rather than what could be. And we miss major market shifts and changes in customer needs that seem obvious in hindsight but are easily overlooked when focusing on what we already know.

Our brain doesn’t like information gaps, so we tend to jump at the first answer/solution that looks good rather than take the time to examine all the data. This is especially true in a world where we receive more information every day than we have time to assimilate. Finally, our brains love to see patterns and make connections. This trait serves us well in many ways as we move through the world. But the brain doesn’t always get it right.

For example, how did you answer question #1 (be honest)? For most people, the first word that pops into their head is “June,” because the brain quickly spots the April/May/June pattern. Upon re-reading the question and analyzing the data, the answer “Johnny” becomes obvious.

And what about the man with the wooden leg? Your answer depends on how you interpret “with.” Does it refer to the man with the wooden leg or to the camera? A bit of a trick question, but it clearly illustrates how the language we use shapes the way we look at the world.

Perhaps the best example of how we miss things is the egg yolk question. Everybody knows egg yolks are yellow. But the question’s phrasing puts our attention on selecting the correct verb, so we overlook an obvious piece of data and an even more obvious answer.

We can’t change how the brain works – at least not yet. Give science another 50 years and who knows what our brains will be doing! For now, we can become more aware of how our brain works, then pause from time to time to consider what we’re missing. This includes the data we’re unconsciously screening out as well as different sources of data to counterbalance what we expect to see.

Get in the habit of teasing your brain. You’ll be amazed at what you end up seeing that you didn’t see before.

10 Things You Didn’t Know About William Shakespeare

1. Shakespeare’s father held a lot of different jobs, and at one point got paid to drink beer.
The son of a tenant farmer, John Shakespeare was nothing if not upwardly mobile. He arrived in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1551 and began dabbling in various trades, selling leather goods, wool, malt and corn. In 1556 he was appointed the borough’s official “ale taster,” meaning he was responsible for inspecting bread and malt liquors. The next year he took another big step up the social ladder by marrying Mary Arden, the daughter of an aristocratic farmer who happened to be his father’s former boss. John later became a moneylender and held a series of municipal positions, serving for some time as the mayor of Stratford. In the 1570s he fell into debt and ran into legal problems for reasons that remain unclear.

2. Shakespeare married an older woman who was three months pregnant at the time.
In November 1582, 18-year-old William wed Anne Hathaway, a farmer’s daughter eight years his senior. Instead of the customary three times, the couple’s intention to marry was only announced at church once—evidence that the union was hastily arranged because of Anne’s eyebrow-raising condition. Six months after the wedding, the Shakespeares welcomed a daughter, Susanna, and twins Hamnet and Judith followed in February 1585. Little is known about the relationship between William and Anne, besides that they often lived apart and he only bequeathed her his “second-best bed” in his will.

3. Shakespeare’s parents were probably illiterate, and his children almost certainly were.
Nobody knows for sure, but it’s quite likely that John and Mary Shakespeare never learned to read or write, as was often the case for people of their standing during the Elizabethan era. Some have argued that John’s civic duties would have required basic literacy, but in any event he always signed his name with a mark. William, on the other hand, attended Stratford’s local grammar school, where he mastered reading, writing and Latin. His wife and their two children who lived to adulthood, Susanna and Judith, are thought to have been illiterate, though Susanna could scrawl her signature.

4. Nobody knows what Shakespeare did between 1585 and 1592.
To the dismay of his biographers, Shakespeare disappears from the historical record between 1585, when his twins’ baptism was recorded, and 1592, when the playwright Robert Greene denounced him in a pamphlet as an “upstart crow.” The insult suggests he’d already made a name for himself on the London stage by then. What did the newly married father and future literary icon do during those seven “lost” years? Historians have speculated that he worked as a schoolteacher, studied law, traveled across continental Europe or joined an acting troupe that was passing through Stratford. According to one 17th-century account, he fled his hometown after poaching deer from a local politician’s estate.

5. Shakespeare’s plays feature the first written instances of hundreds of familiar terms.
William Shakespeare is believed to have influenced the English language more than any other writer in history, coining—or, at the very least, popularizing—terms and phrases that still regularly crop up in everyday conversation. Examples include the words “fashionable” (“Troilus and Cressida”), “sanctimonious” (“Measure for Measure”), “eyeball” (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream”) and “lackluster” (“As You Like It”); and the expressions “foregone conclusion” (“Othello”), “in a pickle” (“The Tempest”), “wild goose chase” (“Romeo and Juliet”) and “one fell swoop” (“Macbeth”). He is also credited with inventing the given names Olivia, Miranda, Jessica and Cordelia, which have become common over the years (as well as others, such as Nerissa and Titania, which have not).

6. We probably don’t spell Shakespeare’s name correctly—but, then again, neither did he.
Sources from William Shakespeare’s lifetime spell his last name in more than 80 different ways, ranging from “Shappere” to “Shaxberd.” In the handful of signatures that have survived, the Bard never spelled his own name “William Shakespeare,” using variations or abbreviations such as “Willm Shakp,” “Willm Shakspere” and “William Shakspeare” instead. However it’s spelled, Shakespeare is thought to derive from the Old English words “schakken” (“to brandish”) and “speer” (“spear”), and probably referred to a confrontational or argumentative person.

7. Shakespeare’s epitaph wards off would-be grave robbers with a curse.
William Shakespeare died on April 23, 1616, at the age of 52—not bad for an era when the average life expectancy ranged between 30 and 40 years. We may never know what killed him, although an acquaintance wrote that the Bard fell ill after a night of heavy drinking with fellow playwright Ben Jonson. Despite his swift demise, Shakespeare supposedly had the wherewithal to pen the epitaph over his tomb, which is located inside a Stratford church. Intended to thwart the numerous grave robbers who plundered England’s cemeteries at the time, the verse reads: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbeare, / To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.” It must have done the trick, since Shakespeare’s remains have yet to be disturbed.

8. Shakespeare wore a gold hoop earring—or so we think.
Our notion of William Shakespeare’s appearance comes from several 17th-century portraits that may or may not have been painted while the Bard himself sat behind the canvas. In one of the most famous depictions, known as the Chandos portrait after its onetime owner, the subject has a full beard, a receding hairline, loosened shirt-ties and a shiny gold hoop dangling from his left ear. Even back in Shakespeare’s time, earrings on men were trendy hallmarks of a bohemian lifestyle, as evidenced by images of other Elizabethan artists. The fashion may have been inspired by sailors, who sported a single gold earring to cover funeral costs in case they died at sea.

9. North America’s 200 million starlings have Shakespeare to thank for their existence.
William Shakespeare’s works contain more than 600 references to various types of birds, from swans and doves to sparrows and turkeys. The starling—a lustrous songbird with a gift for mimicry, native to Europe and western Asia—makes just one appearance, in “Henry IV, Part 1.” In 1890 an American “bardolator” named Eugene Schiffelin decided to import every kind of bird mentioned in Shakespeare’s oeuvre but absent from the United States. As part of this project, he released two flocks of 60 starlings in New York’s Central Park. One hundred twenty years later, the highly adaptable species has taken over the skies, becoming invasive and driving some native birds to the brink of extinction.

10. Some people think Shakespeare was a fraud.
How did a provincial commoner who had never gone to college or ventured outside Stratford become one of the most prolific, worldly and eloquent writers in history? Even early in his career, Shakespeare was spinning tales that displayed in-depth knowledge of international affairs, European capitals and history, as well as familiarity with the royal court and high society. For this reason, some theorists have suggested that one or several authors wishing to conceal their true identity used the person of William Shakespeare as a front. Proposed candidates include Edward De Vere, Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe and Mary Sidney Herbert. Most scholars and literary historians remain skeptical about this hypothesis, although many suspect Shakespeare sometimes collaborated with other playwrights.

The Seven Islands of Bombay

Over a period of 5 centuries Bombay, which was one of oldest and best example of fight for human survival in Indian history, has slowly transformed into today’s Mumbai (or Greater Mumbai). What do we mean by ‘transformed’? Typically the answer to such questions has the same plot – start with the first chapter (old school is always the best school!). Let’s turn the hourglass and race against time.

Chapter 1 – Before the high tide

“All things exist in sevens, since it is the nature of the universe to exist in sevens”.

-Enoch Tan, creator of Mind Reality

7 days of creation, 7 days in a week, 7 deadly sins, 7 notes in music, 7 colors in a rainbow, 7 states of matter, 7 continents of the World, 7 stars of the Big Dipper, 7 seas, snow white’s 7 dwarfs and James Bond 007!

The story of Mumbai also starts with 7 – The Seven Islands of Bombay.

Once upon a time there was an archipelago of lush green seven islands, dotted with 22 hills at the west coast of India, with the Arabian sea washing through them at high tide. These were the habitat of Kolis, the local indigenous people of western India whose main means of living was fishing.They consisted of Bombay, which was only 24 km long and 4 km wide from Dongri to Malabar Hill (at its broadest point) and was the main harbour and nucleus of British fort around which the city grew, Colaba, Old Woman’s Island, Mazagaon, Worli, Parel and Mahim.

Seven original islands of Bombay

Chapter 2: City by the Sea

For centuries, the islands were under the control of successive indigenous empires before being ceded to the British East India Company. The waves were progressing inwards at Worli and Mahim, which turned the land between the islands into a swamp, making Mumbai islands extremely unhealthy and journeys between them dangerous. During the next 150 years many reclamations were undertaken to improve matters. From 1782 onwards, huge amounts of sand was dredged and rocks blasted off the hills situated on the islands were quarried on account of many large-scale civil engineering projects aimed at merging all seven islands. Under the first project, causeways were developed over small creeks of Umarkhadi and Pydhonie to join Mazagaon to Bombay.

Phase I

Hornby Vellard Project: Then governor William Hornby gave a nod for  the building of a sea-wall named Hornby Vellard ( Portuguese word ‘vallado’ meaning fence or embankment) to block the Worli creek sealing the Great Breach (Breach Candy) between Dongri, Malabar hill and Worli. The wall was expected to block the incoming waves from flooding the low lying areas of the city and was completed in 1784. It, thus, facilitated the reclamation of 400 acres of land on which the city spread. The surroundings of Mahalaxmi, Kamathipura, Tardeo and parts of Bycullah were inhabited by the crowd from central city. The cost was estimated at about Rs. 1,00,000. Eventually many causeways were built to connect various land masses developed. It included a causeway from Salsette to Sion in 1803 and Mahim to Bandra in 1845. Mahim and Bandra were joined at a total cost of Rs 1,57,000 granted by Lady Avabai Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, wife of the first baronet Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy, from her personal pocket.

Colaba Causeway: The Colaba causeway was completed in 1838 joining Colaba, Old Woman’s Island and nearby small islands to Bombay. In 1870, the hills of Chinchpokli and Byculla area were quarried and thrown into the sea, to fill up the gaps around railway lines and land masses so as to leave no room for stagnant water. The Bombay City Improvement trust completed reclamation of a massive 90,000 square yards of land alongside the west coast of Colaba by 1905.

Map of Bombay in 1893

Phase II

Backbay Reclamation: City became the important centre of trade and commerce and additional plans were made to reclaim more land for building roads and rail tracks. Bombay began to attract many traders and population increased quickly from 13,726 in 1780 to 9,77,822 in 1906. To accommodate the exponentially growing population major constructions happened in Bombay from 1870 to 1970 which ended with the Backbay Reclamation.

Reclaimed Land

The Backbay Reclamation Company (BRC) was formed in the 1860s with the aim to reclaim the Back Bay which is in between Colaba and Bombay islands.  But the BRC went bankrupt in 1865 as the land prices fell drastically and the small strip of reclaimed land was given away to Government Railways for construction of railway lines between the islands. This was followed by another proposal by the Development Directorate in 1917. They aimed to reclaim 607 hectares of land filling up the entire Backbay by 1945 at an overall estimated expenditure of Rs 11 crores. However, the construction came to a steady halt when The Backbay Enquiry Committee headed by K F Nariman pointed out faults in the construction like an inefficient dredging craft and leakage of 9,00,000 cubic yards of sand through the new sea wall constructed under this project. Eventually, 94 of the 100 hectares developed was sold to military and on the remaining Marine Drive was established.Third Backbay Reclamation project built the Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade over the garbage of the city illegally dumped into the Arabian sea!

Chapter 3: As the City Grew!

“Self-interest is the survival of the animal in us. Humanity only begins for a man with self-surrender.”

- Henryi Frederic Amiel, Swiss Philosopher

The Supreme Court slowed down the reclamations since 1970 in the interest of protecting the shoreline and fishermen. And the Supreme Court has added more restriction in 1990s with the Coastal Regulatory Zones. Why did they have to put these restrictions?  Every city at the coast has wetlands, wastelands, mangroves and salt-pan lands which act like buffers in slowing down the high tide before it reaches the mainland. In the past 10 years each of these has been destroyed systematically in Mumbai. For the construction of Bandra-Worli sea link the Mithi river is blocked with reclamations. 20,000 hectares of wetlands were destroyed in the name of urbanisation in Vasai-Virar and 7,000 hectares of wetlands were replaced by Jawaharlal Nehru Port. So no cushion is left to absorb the surplus water of the sea during the high tide or for the heavy rains during the monsoons. The water has no alternative but to hit the land.

Versova Beach Erosion

Versova Beach Erosion: All this water has to be kept under control if the land in Bombay is to remain habitable. The waves hitting the land of Bombay move with rapid and fierce force in the ocean which are slowly arrested by the shallow creeks near Colaba, Bandra and Mahim and they take the shape of the coast reaching the land at much calmer pace. Now that the Mahim Bay and Back Bay are being reclaimed, the waves can only be dissipated by the Malad creek in the North. The violent waves hit the land and the course of sea changes drastically towards the Malad creek in north which is causing massive erosion of Versova Beach. The ill effects of excessive land reclamations can also be seen from the recurring floods in Ulhas and Vaitarna rivers in the low lying areas of Bombay. Only proper planning and prevention measures can find long term solutions to these geological hazards.

Source: housing.com