Monday, September 28, 2009

Post blog post(ing)

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Note 1: These are the views formed by an amateur blogger, experienced ones may gratify me with some enlightening thoughts that I am not aware of.

Note 2: For bloggers-to-be, please refrain from using this post as a potential guide for yourselves.
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The very act of "post"ing a blog is satisfying in itself, in the sense that you have a sense of creation. But what you do post posting a blog is somewhat intriguing. Those geeky enough to put an analytics on their blog would want to keep knowing live statistics of how their baby is performing.

For me, after opening the analytics page once every 5 minutes after posting, what is most intriguing to me is that every time I make a post, and check the analytics data, I am gratified by gaussian-like curves which show the number of visitors on my blog. Every time! The shape is almost the same everytime, just that the peaks may vary. For starters, here is what a gaussian function looks like:



...and here is what the hits on the blog look like (Please note, some curves are a linear combination of one of more gaussian curves :P)


Ok! I am sorry. Enough of the romancing about the beauty of statistics, Mr. Gauss, and the curves (yes, these are the only curves we are aware of :'( )

Enough already about post-blog posting. Here is a little about pre-blog posting.

Some guidelines that I follow before I make a blogpost (others are free to follow these, or others, as the case maybe).

I ask myself the following questions before posting:

1) Is my post going to influence the views of the reader?

2) Is my post a society-changing post, and makes a strong point against the prevailing social evils?

3) Is my post going to make my readers laugh?

4) Am I NOT going to get ridiculed and made fun of in public for writing it?

5) Will it be appreciated by anyone?

If the answer to ALL of the above questions come out to be a NO, thats an indication that I have come up with a perfect post to be made on my blog. :D

Now that I have made my blog post, let me get back to...

Post Blog post(ing)...

Friday, September 18, 2009

Maslow's (Reverse?) Hierarchy of Needs

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Note 1: @Maslow, I am extremely sorry to turn your theory topsy-turvy. Couldn't help it, that is how things are. :P

Note 2: @Everybody, for those in the dark about @Maslow, here is the Wikipedia Article
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There is a very interesting concept taught in "B Schools", by one Mr. Maslow, from his 1943 paper on "The Theory of Human Motivation". (There is a theory about it? :O That explains a lot of things :P ) This states that there is a "hierarchy" of "needs" that people have, and one moves up (or, is motivated to move up) in the hierarchy once the lower order needs are met.

This can be depicted in a pyramidal figure as shown below for a better understanding of the concept.
The figure is not really difficult to understand. First you fulfill the basic needs (as given in the bottom layer), and then gradually progress upwards. Let me not explain it, I ll come straight to the point.

Now for the twist! At college (true for Kgp, I am pretty sure it will be true for other IIT campuses, and for the rest, let me not comment on it. Let the comments to this post flow :D ), we fulfill this hierarchy in the reverse order :O . So the revised figure for us would pretty much look like as shown below:

A little explanation would not hurt.

1. We come, we join. Suddenly it hits us, and we start accepting the facts, and get rid of our prejudices. We join dramatics, music, blah blah.....societies and let our creative juices flow, and discover how talented "hidden artists" we all were :D

2. We gain confidence, we achieve, we see "GODs", we respect them.

3-7. We love all of it, and begin to develop a sense of belonging to this place. (Yes, you can only love what you do, because real love eludes you for quite a long time :D )

8. Security. (Job? CAT? GRE? GMAT? ... ) :D

8+. And finally...the basest need according to Maslow, we finally get what Maslow thought we should have gotten first. Food, sleep, sex (:D), and (hopefully...) better toilets. \m/ \m/

The Maslow's (Reverse?) Hierarchy of needs...