S Anand

Prove God exists. Descartes proved it by assuming that ‘Cogito, ergo sum’. ProofGodExists.com uses what’s called the Watchmaker Argument – that there can be no watch without a watchmaker. Richard Dawkins countered that beautifully in The Blind Watchmaker. Now, I’m a religious guy and all that. But I’d rather take God on faith than proof, OK? Comments Clare McIntaggart 19 Feb 2007 12:19 pm: regardless of my religious convictions Descartes reasoning was flawed when he ‘proved’ the exsistance of god. flawed for many reasons which only one of was the lack of applying his own method of doubt.

After a group meeting, we went to ‘The Biz’, a restaurant inside LBS. They served some kind of rice with curry containing lots of vegetables. I ate rather well and found it quite edible, until I heard the price. 3.50 pounds, or about Rs. 233. Roughly what my sandwich cost in Tokyo. Very nice. I needed a suit for the Boston Consulting Group presentation tomorrow, so the afternoon was largely a shopping exercise. I took the tube to the Bond Street station, and walked along Oxford Street. It’s something like the Brigade Road of Bangalore, I guess. The first shop I walked into had been strongly recommended by my cousing (Vishnu) – Ciro Citterio. Luckily they had BIG brushed aluminium signs outside saying “Sale!”, and had 99 pounds written boldly, so I had the guts to walk in. (Of course, I didn’t convert. I don’t fancy buying suits for Rs. 6,650). ...

Well, apparantly LBS has just had its lecture theatres (LTs) newly made! Which is why they look so good, I hear. At least, the Professors keep commenting about how new the LTs are, and how they’re unused to it and all that. This afternoon, Pallavi, another exchange student, an MBA 2001 student and myself, got together and ran a series of mock interviews. LBS’ consulting club has some very good material on case interviews. ...

Deloitte Consulting gave a presentation today for campus recruitment. Apparantly, we have to be in business suits to sit in any of the presentations! But luckily, since Deloitte has an informal culture, they said ‘business casual’ was OK. I squeaked past with just a tie. Need to buy a suit! The hall could seat about 100 people, and was full. Of course, you had to sign 24 hours in advance to get in, and they take attendance outside the hall. I took a copy of their annual report (which they were distributing outside) and sat in the front row. A huge contingent had come for the presentation: 1 big shot from manufacturing, 1 senior HR person, the liason for LBS and DC, 3 managers, 2 senior consultants, and 2-5 others who had recently joined! ...

Vault.com has some extremely good free reports. They include the Guide to Consulting and the Guide to Investment Banking. They also have some extremely good company reports. Ideal for placement research.

The session on Mergers, MBOs and other corporate reorganizations by Paulo Volpin started 5 minutes late. Reason: They had a problem with the computer projector. Fixing it turned out to be a hi-tech exercise, though. A guy came in with some kind of a hand-held device, pointed it around like a remote control, and the projector was on. 6:05PM – 5 minutes lost. 5 minutes later, “IP address conflict”. The Professor gives up and moves on to trusty slides. He came prepared. ...

Today was my first class at the London Business School, and I’ve written up my experiences on day 1. I plan to keep updating it.

Krislyn’s Strictly Business sites is a portal for business sites. It’s appeal is in its flat structure and small list of good sites.

This would be it. If Ram Vilas Paswan sticks to his word and provides toll-free ISP numbers, Internet access in India would really shoot up. I’m sure Caltiger would be the first to benefit from this.

LBS’ placement cell publishes a magazine called Target, some of whose pages I’ve scanned. It gives an idea about what consulting and finance is, what companies look for, how to prepare for interviews, alumni feedback, etc. Sorry about the small size of scanning, but I had to conserve disk space. I’ll bring the book to IIM-B when I come back.

Vault.com is another great career resource like Wetfeet.

I went to the Tower of London on a guided tour with a hilarious Yeoman Guard. The Tower Bridge, just next to it, is what people usually mistake to be the London Bridge. Oxford Street was expensive, but great for window shopping. The British Musuem, however, is free, and is a whole universe in itself.

Biz, AOLiza and other chatbots are programs that lurk chat space. Have a look at their conversations, especially this one with a guy who was jilted. It’s bewildering, and yet…

Internet Indicators has a report on how the 4 layers of the Internet economy have been progressing.

Remember the US site that lets people auction their votes? Now they’ve moved it to Bulgaria, out of the US jurisdiction. The Internet is truly borderless!

AdReady has a neat idea: pop up advertisements near the mouse pointer, when the mouse is sitting idle. Cool. But I don’t want anything popping up when I’m reading! Besides, since this is an easy idea to copy, I doubt they should have it as their USP.

In 1900, David Hilbert outlined 23 unsolved problems in mathematics. Many of these have been solved today, with the notable exception of the Riemann Hypothesis. Today, if we solve any of these, we get $1 million.

I’ve always liked devices attached to the Internet. Web cameras are a hot favourite. Earthcam is a portal for web cameras. Google has more webcam directories.

Wanted Joseph Bosco, for the crime of ogling at girls in Sweden and not even writing to me about it. Better do so quickly before someone searches for your name and finds it on my site!

A guy called Baumgartner at the RPI set up a site that lets people auction their votes. Users of Gnutella (and Napster) are free-riding. People are faking videos real-time. Author’s reviews are forged. Life in the 21st century doesn’t look promising ;-)