Life in 140 characters

No, i never imagined it before i entered this zone. It was not 'just-another' social networking site. It beat my imagination.Yes, i am talking about Twitter and my experience in it for just over half an year. Social networking is something that i always admired for host of reasons apart from entertainment and networking.

 Twitter is the perhaps the first and the most popular site to introduce the concept of micro-blogging. The restriction of 140 characters is obviously inspired by SMS. Just over 6 years of its creation, the effect the twitter has brought about is really amazing. Every celebrity worth his salt would have an account in twitter and facebook.

 Though facebook and twitter are essentially social networking sites, there are many differences when it comes to the actual usage. Facebook is more towards entertainment but whereas twitter is more towards information. Your identity hardly matters in twitter but not so in facebook. Someone differentiated them pretty well stating "In facebook who you are is more important than what you say, but in twitter it's just the opposite". So, you can see many people with concealed identitities garnering a lot of followers because they are saying the right things despite their unknown identities.

 When any news erupts, no social media reacts as swiftly as twitter. If one has his area of interest, and knows whom to follow, he can get a hell lot of information in that field. This has been my experience so far. Even the news that main stream media blacks out for various reasons can be found in twitter. So, if you are an infomaniac, this is the place for you. You'll have a lot of like minded people and there can be great many discussions.

 One more positive i have found out of twitter is that i have found many good bloggers who are way better read and way better informed than the mainstream writers that we daily encounter in the newspapers. Through twitter, they are able to convey some important things to wider audience. Twitter has given them some considerable fan following as well. Till date, i have read many good blogs of many people. I wouldn't have known about those blogs if not for twitter. (In the near future,I intend to write about some of the good bloggers that i have encountered. So, I am not going into the details here).

 There are many other reasons to admire twitter. In my opinion it's impeding the fanatic pace of mainstream media which was/is peddling lies all the way. This is no mean task. That's why you see them cry foul in twitter that rightists (or 'Internet Hindus' as they are fondly named!) have taken control over twitter. This,all the way comfortably forgetting that the communists and pseudo-secularists have hijacked the whole nation and taking it systematically to the dogs. All these years, the main stream media had no challenges. With the advent of twitter and many other social networking sites, they no more can lie through their teeth.

I only wish social media in general & twitter in particular grows from strength to strength because mainstream media has more or less failed in carrying the responsibility of being the fourth pillar of democracy. I fervently hope twitter is here to stay and for good!

My Books Review: June '12

1) Quantum Mystery- This book is written by Rajat Chandra, a physicist and is published by National book trust of India. It is a short book of just over 100 pages which outlines the circumstances that led to the discovery of quantum physics and all the people responsible for its evolution as a subject. A random  excerpt from the book which speaks about the enormous time that has elapsed in the past: “Suppose the whole history of the universe is shrunk to one year, from midnight January 1 to midnight December 31(present). Then the solar system is born around 1st of September. The dinosaurs die out around the noon of December 30. The first direct ancestors of mankind, the hominids, appear around 9 p.m of December 31 and the recorded history of mankind begins just 10 seconds ago. “ 

The book enumerates the success and failure of classical physics in the beginning. Classical physics that’s propounded by Newton, Einstein, and Maxwell is very successful in explaining all the phenomenon of macroscopic world. But the laws of classical physics fail miserably in the microscopic world comprising atoms, molecules, electrons, atomic nuclei and light.

Many important theories that fall under quantum mechanics are briefly discussed like: Uncertainty principle, Bose-Einstein condensation, Schrödinger’s cat paradox, Bohm’s interpretation of quantum mechanics, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen paradox and Bell’s theorem.

Quantum mechanics sometimes defies common sense the way we understand the word common sense, it defies logic. The theory of quantum mechanics has many spiritual, philosophical implications than any other theories. The theory hasn’t got complete acceptance. But, it is very much successful in accounting for the phenomenon of microscopic world. The book successfully outlines the theory of quantum mechanics.

2) Understanding Islam Through Hadis- This book of Ram Swarup briefly introduces the main ahadis (“Sayings” or”Traditions”, Singular- Hadis) to the readers. The main sources of Islam are two: Quran and Hadis. The Muslims believe Quran to be revelation of god to Muhammad and Hadis, all that he did or said. Hadis is more important than Quran as it is the most important single source of Islamic laws & practices. 

The subject matters that are discussed in Hadis are diverse. Like Iman(Faith), Salat(Prayer), taharah(purification), Al-Nikah(marrriage), Al-Talaq (divorse),Zakat(poor tax), sawm(fast), and hajj (pilgrimage), Al-Imara(government), Tauba(repentance), Munafiqin(hypocrites); also on Jihad(holy war), al-anfal(war booty), and khums(the holy fifth),on punishment, food, drink, women, slaves, ablution, toilet and many more.

The main sources from which the contents of this book are taken: Sahih Muslim, Sahih Bukhari, Sirat Rasul Allah, Tarikh Tabari ; all the sources are considered to be authentic in the Muslim world. So, there can be no question about the authenticity of the works. This book is useful for all who are interested in knowing the real concepts of Jihad, Talaq and many others. Since Islam stands on two pillars: Quran and Hadith (Sunnah also forms part of it), if you know both of them, you’ve almost known all of Islam.

3) Connect the Dots- Be it Prem Ganapathy of Dosa Plaza, or Ganesh Ram of Veta, all the entrepreneurs that are featured in this book have one factor in common: All these started their respective ventures right from the scratch and without having any professional business degrees like MBAs they made their ventures successful. This is Rashmi Bansal’s second book about successful entrepreneurs of India after ‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’. While the first book is the success stories about those who had their MBAs from IIM-A, this one is about those who did not have any business degree. 

Most of the people who are featured in this book neither had any clear-cut plans for their future nor any burning desire to succeed. But still when time came, somehow they made it. They made opportunity meet the preparedness and thus got lucky. This can be an inspiring series of tales for all the would-be entrepreneurs giving them hope and delivering the message for them ‘it’s never too late’!