The RantHouse

On the eve of Facebook’s IPO, Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg published the following letter to potential investors:

Dear Potential Investor:

For years, you’ve wasted your time on Facebook.  Now here’s your chance to waste your money on it, too.

Tomorrow is Facebook’s IPO, and I know what some of you are thinking.  How will Facebook be any different from the dot-com bubble of the early 2000’s?

For one thing, those bad dot-com stocks were all speculation and hype, and weren’t based on real businesses.  Facebook, on the other hand, is based on a solid foundation of angry birds and imaginary sheep.

Second, Facebook is the most successful social network in the world, enabling millions to share information of no interest with people they barely know.

Third, every time someone clicks on a Facebook ad, Facebook makes money.  And while no one has ever done this on purpose, millions have done it by mistake while drunk.  We totally stole this idea from iTunes.

Finally, if you invest in Facebook, you’ll be far from alone.  As a result of using Facebook for the past few years, over 900 million people in the world have suffered mild to moderate brain damage, impairing their ability to make reasoned judgments.  These will be your fellow Facebook investors.

With your help, if all goes as planned tomorrow, Facebook’s IPO will net $100 billion.  To put that number in context, it would take JP Morgan four or five trades to lose that much money.

One last thing: what will, I, Mark Zuckerberg, do with the $18 billion I’m expected to earn from Facebook’s IPO?  Well, I’m considering buying Greece, but that would still leave me with $18 billion.  LOL.

Friend me,

Mark

Source: BorowitzReport

When I went to India, I picked up quite a few books and one of them that was based purely on a vague memory of someone having told me to read it was Khushwant Singh’s Train To Pakistan. I promise myself never to read the entire plot of books before I pick them up, just a quick glace at the synopsis. Written on the theme of the India-Pakistan partition, Singh probably relates more to this book than anyone can imagine because he was merely 30 when this tragedy took place. It’s so beautifully sketched, the characters so well-studied that you feel like you know them in just a mere 230-ish pages.

The book outlines the tragic partition of India and Pakistan in a fictional small Punjabi village Mano Majra in which a small population of simple people living around a railway line which travels between India & Pakistan. It’s inhabitants, mostly Sikh farmers, and their Muslim tenants, have remained relatively untouched by the violence of the partition. Things change when the village money lender, Ram Laal, is murdered and the blame is pinned on the village goon Juggut Singh “Jugga”, a Sikh who is always in and out of prison and in love with the village mullah’s daughter. The village’s powerful district magistrate Hukum Chand, with his worldly possessions but sad beginnings, sends his minion, the sub-inspector of the police to arrest Jugga. Confusion and guilt forces the police to also round up a Western-educated visitor who is a worker for the Communist party, Iqbal, who is staying in the Gurudwara with the simple temple priest. The unassuming nature of the villagers is changed when a train heading from Pakistan stops at the railway station  with corpses of Sikh refugees. This impacts the villagers and their perspective of the fellow Muslims. As the story progresses, you feel a genuine loss when you see Hindus saying their farewells to the Muslims and it leaves with you frustration and hopelessness. However, Jugga takes it as his responsibility to save the Muslims to reach safely to Pakistan, even if it takes his life.

The entire story is so well written, you almost feel like a character in the book. I actually put down the book and took a few minutes to analyze what happened right at the end of it (don’t do it often). Mr Singh’s descriptions have long carried out realistic characterizations and leave you with in a world of complete imagination. This book has met exceeded my expectations with me lingering for more. I would definitely recommend to pick this book, not for knowledge on the partition, but to get a real insight on the people side of the story during those trying times. 

It’s almost as if someone is drilling a hole in my gums. Almost. The pain was unbearable on Monday morning when I woke up to go to work. That evening, I went to visit the dentist hoping to run into the nice friendly lady I usually talk to. It wasn’t her. Instead it was some grumpy, elderly woman named Mary. She kept asking me questions while she shoved her hand down my mouth and all I could think was - is it customary of the dentist to do this so that she doesn’t have to wait for an answer?

So apparently, my gums hurt because my wisdom tooth wants to grow, but the upper molar teeth keep pushing my gums. I was given two options - either do the entire ‘cut-your-gums-to-extract-wisdom-tooth’ or the alternative which, well, I opted for: I went for the drill my upper molar teeth into shape so that it doesnt keep hitting my gum when I close my mouth. Now, surely it’s easier, I thought to myself. Except I’m now on extensive antibiotics AND painkillers. Bravo for the choice!

Okay, so in my defence (nobody asked for it, but okay), I have a driving test in a day and I think with a bleeding mouth, it would have been impossible to drive around. Ah, speaking of which, I am extremely nervous about this driving test. It’s almost as if my brain is mocking me by making me constantly think about it. Damn you brain.

So I was searching the internet for reasons why the wisdom tooth comes so late, and I found the Raffles Medical website that clearly explains the concept. Check out This link!. It’s nice to know that atleast 3 of my wisdom teeth are already out (2 of which didnt hurt at all when they arrived).