Monday, November 21, 2005

Wind Beneath My Winds..

... just wanna thank someone without whose help i would have probably strayed from my path.

Dear Sir,

Thank you for trusting in me,
Thank you for guiding me,
Thank you for always being there for me....

Above all , thank you for being a teacher, a guide, a mentor and a friend...to me and to all others.

Hoping more and more faces have a smile courtesy you !

with all the love in the world...

Monday, November 14, 2005

Neat..

Krupa found this on Orkut :

A Placecomer is best
When people barely knows he exists,
Not so good when they obey and acclaim him
Worse when they despise him,
But of a good placecomer, who takes little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled,
They will say:
We did it ourselves.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Hmmmm....

....... whaddya know !

According to the news below.....we killed prehistoric man by doing too much business......and i thought they died of boredom of studying for endless exams.

Summers are over.....as in the main process days.......your's truly would be interning with TAS. If one more person says TAS who, ill whack him/her so more on that later.
Actual work begins now that almost 100 students have to be placed in the next month, hopefully less.

Amen to that !

Gotta go study for Prof. Sahay's exam ( mentioned in Siva's blog... sivananth.blogspot.com)

Free trade may have finished off Neanderthals

Modern humans may have driven Neanderthals to extinction 30,000 years ago because Homo sapiens unlocked the secrets of free trade, say a group of US and Dutch economists. The theory could shed new light on the mysterious and sudden demise of the Neanderthals after over 260,000 years of healthy survival.

Anthropologists have considered a wide range of factors which may explain Neanderthal extinction, including biological, environmental and cultural causes. For example, one major study concluded that Neanderthals were less able to deal with plunging temperatures during the last glacial period.

Another possibility is that they were less able hunters as a result of poorer mental abilities, says Eric Delson, an anthropologist at Lehman College, City University of New York, US. But he adds that most theories are reliant on guesswork. Exactly how humans ousted Neanderthals remains a puzzle. “They were successful for such a long time,” he points out.

Jason Shogren, an economist at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, US, says part of the answer may lie in humans’ superior trading habits. Trading would have allowed the division of labour, freeing up skilled individuals, such as hunters, to focus on the tasks they are best at. Others, perhaps making tools or clothes or gathering food, would give the hunters resources in return for meat.

Largely unorganised

The idea that specialisation leads to greater success was first used in the 18th century to explain why some nations were wealthier than others. But this is the first time it has been applied to the Neanderthal extinction puzzle, says Shogren.

He cites archaeological evidence that suggests that humans, who joined Neanderthals in Europe about 40,000 years ago, specialised and traded both within and between regions. The evidence includes complex living quarters with different sections partitioned for different functions. Neanderthals, in contrast, lived in “largely unorganised” living spaces.

There is also evidence that the early humans, mainly one population called the Gravettians, imported materials. Ivory, stones, fossils, seashells and crafted tools were found dispersed through many regions. This greater pool of resources led to increased innovation, says Shogren.

Simulated circumstances

Shogren tested his theory with simulations of population growth. He even gave the Neanderthals, who were larger than Homo sapiens, a head start by assuming they were better hunters and individually brought home more meat - which may or may not be true.

But because humans were allowed to trade, in two of three similar simulations, they overcame this initial handicap and ousted the Neanderthals within 7000 years. In the third simulation, the two ended up co-existing.

“It’s an intriguing and novel idea,” says Delson. “But it requires stronger support.” He points out that the Gravettians in particular only emerged 28,000 years ago, while the last of the Neanderthals died about 29,000 years ago.

So the Gravettians could not have had very much influence in the extinction of the Neanderthals, he argues. “He also assumes that all they ate was meat, which of course is not true,” he adds.

The study will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organization, co-authored by Erwin Bulte of Tilburg University in the Netherlands and Richard Horan at Michigan State University in East Lansing, US

Friday, November 04, 2005

Testing Times

And Finally......
It all begins today....

The grind of 14 people for months culminated with the official beginning of Summers 2006 today afternoon..... discounting a coupla companies which have already been here.

Wishin luck to all.....
Hoping we have a great placement this year.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

Silent Night.........NAH !!

Happy Diwali to all...

My first diwali away from home.... am missing home, lights all around, meeting a million people, opening and packing gifts, endless sweets, decorating the house and praying with the family.
But at IIML, its not all that bad , hehe. With the family here, its the same decorating, lighting, praying...... :)

Wishin everyone a Wonderful New Year....

God Bless Us All !!

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