Inspiring or Compromising

I love reading The Scribe A Kadir Jasin blog. Beside enjoying his postings in Bahasa Melayu (or is it Bahasa Malaysia? Sigh!!), you will learn few other things along the way - especially all this classic English literature, idioms or sayings. In today's posting "Usul Cabar Tiada Usul Sokong Ada"

Sekali gus timbul syak wasangka bahawa "Pedang Damocles" (the Sword of Damocles) yang dipegang oleh Pentadbiran Abdullah akan memenggal leher sesiapa sahaja yang berani menentangnya.

I wondered what is "The Sword of Damocles". I wasn't satisfy with the explanation at Wikipedia. This is much more interesting.

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New York Times has this great article about my uncle - Mukesh Ambani, titled, Meet Mukesh Ambani - India's Richest Man - Indian to the Core, and an Oligarch. Free registration is required before reading the article - it is worth it.

He maintains a low public profile; even those close to him describe him as inscrutable. On one hand, he is seen as a man whose heart bleeds for India. He is motivated by"the ability to change the face of the country," said K. V. Kamath, the C.E.O. of ICICI Bank and a longtime financier and friend of the Ambanis. "That is the biggest kick anybody would get today — that they could touch the lives of a large number of these billion people and make things better for them."

After done reading the article, I noticed that...

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According to Business Technology article (discovered via Slashdot.org), Men Write Code from Mars, Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus, the author claims that...

that men and women write code differently. Women are more touchy-feely and considerate of those who will use the code later, she says. They’ll intersperse their code–those strings of instructions that result in nifty applications and programs–with helpful comments and directions, explaining why they wrote the lines the way they did and exactly how they did it.

The code becomes a type of "roadmap" for others who might want to alter it or add to it later, says McGrattan, a native of Ireland who has been with Ingres since 1992.

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On how to manage this Common Wealth just take a look at Norway's policy on its oil bounty (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway). In 2006, oil and gas accounted for 58% of exports. To reduce over-heating from oil money and the uncertainty from the oil income volatility, and to save money for an aging population, the Norwegian state started in 1995 to save petroleum income (taxes, dividends, licensing, sales) in a sovereign wealth fund.

Discovered here. Continue reading here and here.

UPDATED @ 11:17 PM 6/12/2008: To understand Norway's Wealth better, read here.

As a result, Taleb is now the hottest thinker in the world. He has a $4m advance on his next book. He gives about 30 presentations a year to bankers, economists, traders, even to Nasa, the US Fire Administration and the Department of Homeland Security. But he doesn’t tell them what to do – he doesn’t know. He just tells them how the world is. "I’m not a guru. I’m just describing a problem and saying, ‘You deal with it.’"

Very insightful article, a must read.