Kubla Khan remixxed

Credit: Artmagick

Hilarious ! From the incomparable McSweeney’s

OK, it makes sense only if you have read the original poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (all ICSE students did!)

In Xanadu Did Kubla Khan a Stately PowerPoint Decree.
BY Mike Lacher

- – - -

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately PowerPoint decree:
For VP of Logistics, Stan
And key stakeholders of the plan
For scaling in Q3.

So ninety slides so media-rich
With animations on every switch.
And here were slides rife with sinuous clip art
Where blossomed many a stick figure with a key;
And here a line, pie, scatter, and bar chart,
Enfolding watermarked stock photography.
But oh! that massive romantic flowchart which raked
Down multiple slides athwart notes of automation!
A savage place! as convoluted and opaque
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By a manager wailing for best practices for escalation!

And from this flowchart, with ceaseless sound effects blasting,
As if the typewriter noises were everlasting,
Mighty WordArt momently was star-wiped;
And in faux-3D metallic letters was typed
Huge statements of “scale” and “ROI”
And colorful encouragements to “reach for the sky!”
And ‘mid these dynamic calls-to-action
Came a Family Circus cartoon with relevant caption.
Five questions marks with a blinds-in animation
Representing the questions the audience surely had
Then reached the answer to make them glad
That what they need is team-based innovation
And ‘mid this slide came to Kubla’s attention
Ancestral voices prophesying higher rates of client retention!

The shadow of the PowerPoint slides
Floated across the conference call
Where was heard the muffled asides
From Denver and St. Paul
It was a miracle of device,
A PowerPoint with graphics so nice!
A damsel with a laser pointer
In a vision once I saw:
It was a Senior Logistics Strategist,
And with her pointer she never missed,
Highlighting key takeaways.
Could I revive within me
Her slick presentation,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with slides and presenter notations,
I would build that PowerPoint in air,
That sunny deck! Those slides so fine!
And all who heard should see him there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His swirling text, his Aeron chair!
Snap your laptop at its joint,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of PowerPoint.

Religion is the shit !

Came across this today when I was cleaning up my hard disk….classic ! Won’t specifically agree with the Islam thing. It’s a little TOO wrong but otherwise….this is funny !

The Killer slogan for an anti-perspirant

“Behind every successful man is a woman. However, success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. “

I can’t take credit for this one. By my brilliant rakhi brother-in-law

Where’s the product placement in mobile gaming?

It started with a discussion I was having was discussing with one of my cousin’s friends who was into digital media (pertaining to my career and stuff) and he mentioned that gaming was an area ripe for mobile advertising. So I basically went out to do some research and realized that most of the advertising is banner based i.e. either during the game, before and after the game, there are banners displayed that you click to probably go to a website of the advertiser or can make in-app purchases. I think this is ridiculous. No one playing a game is going to click on a banner or ad and go out of the game to make a purchase. That’s just unrequested interruption that a player will ignore.

It just seems that mobile advertising seems to track the web based model very closely rather than acting as the digital replacement of several different kind of ad strategies. One example which I don’t think is being exploited enough: product placement. And what’s really wetting my pants right now is a remix of a game, a product placement and a mobile coupon (I am getting too obsessed with this mobile coupon concept for my own good!).

For example, let’s say someone playing Angry Birds finishes a particular level (I understand Level 14 is one of the more difficult ones), there are already inherent rewards built into the game in terms of his scores or getting to move on to the next level. However, what if there were the possibility of also obtaining extrinsic rewards as well? For example, because he finished a tough level, he gets rewards such as: a 20% off on Mango merchandise, a free hukkah/ nachos combo at Times Cafe (This nachos and hukkah at Times Cafe is driving me crazy….i love them both !) or a 50% off on say three movies at Reliance Big Cinemas. You can choose any one and the reward (now obviously you realize we have now entered into the realm of mobile coupons) automatically gets registered against the player’s mobile number and the player continues with the game. Now at any time (before the expiry of the coupon) after playing the game, the player can access those coupons to get their requisite discounts.

One way to do this is tie up with advertisers at the game development stage itself. Something like in Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog – along with picking up gold coins, you also pick up a discount for 20% of a Pepsi or 30% of a Bacardi Breezer or something. And later versions can have tie-ups with other advertisers. So depending on which version of the game you download, the offers will differ.

But even better, the best part is that I don’t see a reason why a particular coupon needs to be integrated in the game. If a profile-based advertising model can be built (where the customer needs to maintain an updated profile….duh!), the offers can be updated everytime the level starts  through GPRS. This brings in another dimension to the typical content provider-ad network-advertiser model as shown below:

Credit: Contextweb

Notice something in the diagram on the left? The word “users” don’t seem to appear anywhere. That’s because the current advertising model rests on the basic assumption that people who use a particular content are interested in specific type of advertisements/products. That may be true for only specific types of content providers (technology blogs, MMORPG) where the content is somewhat specialized and the fan following are of a specific psychographic. But how do you extrapolate that to casual games like those from Zynga’s or general news such as CNN where there is no specific demographic that watches the kind of news/ content they provide. This is where I believe a user profile would be extremely important at the ad network level. I have some ideas on how that needs to be built-up but it requires some serious level of trust in the ad network (and that is a vicious circle – you don’t give information because you don’t trust them, they don’t have any information to safely maintain and hence have no way to win your confidence). However, if you do build that up , the game suddenly gets more interesting, a lot more rewarding and hell, the mobile coupon business gets a serious shot in the arm.

In fact, if any of you played the Mario Bros. games, there are these bricks you hit in the game levels and get these gold coins/ mushrooms (yummy!) that add to your powers. Now, imagine the same game remixed to include product placement (I’m going to use “hitting the brick” as an example of a specific desired action to access an ad/offer). During the game, there is also another brick that if you hit, opens an interface which offers you various coupon rewards ( as explained before), you immediately choose the option you want (including one that implies “none of the offers are interesting or relevant to me) and continue playing the game. The way it would be designed is that as per the original code, if such a brick exists in that game level, then use an API to download content in a pre-defined format during game load and when the brick is hit, display the content. So when the game level is loading, the API connects to the ad network and basically, downloads various relevant ads (based on the user’s profile). When the game is played, and the brick is hit, you get the requisite content i.e. the offers. In fact, the design can be modified either to display various offers that the person can access at the end of the level or when he hits the brick. More importantly, the design should ensure minimum intrusion during game-play i.e. literally simulate as much as possible the collecting of coins as per the usual gameplay. It should not simulate an unwanted distraction instead of a valuable reward. The song and dance around the offers can come after the level is completed.

I can easily imagine people sitting in cafes and restaurants playing games to get discounts on meals at that restaurant/ cafe. That would become similar to something what Scvngr is doing except that their games are a lot less complicated than a Angry Birds or a Super Mario Bros. game. In fact, it would be the reverse of what Scvngr is doing, in the sense that in a Scvngr model, both the game and the offer are store-specific, while in this model, the game is location/ store agnostic but the offers are not.

It seems to be an interesting and a more powerful way to enhance the mobile advertising process. I wonder what I am missing?

Manu Joseph is a playa !

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Yesterday night, I witnessed one of the most brilliant attacks in psychological chess ever – Manu Joseph vs. Barkha Dutt. Barkha maybe one of the most seasoned reporters in Indian media but she showed yesterday that she just can’t strategize an attack or a defense as an interviewee. Manu Joseph had only one card to play and he played it perfectly. The rest of the time he was busy playing Barkha Dutt

First see the entire panel discussion: Barkha Dutt, other editors on Radia tapes controversy

The first impression is that, well, Manu completely and totally screwed over Barkha for failing to give a satisfactory answer to his question and that Barkha was excessively defensive and rude to the point that it was totally unprofessional. It was a total and complete decimation of Barkha on the grounds of her professional ethics, courtesy, etc. Well, fair enough. I felt the same way too. But, when you think about it, it was less about how Barkha reacted and more about how Manu handled the situation.

First, let’s set some background context here. Barkha is a brilliant, incisive journalist who has broken a lot of sensitive issues in the past. She is a one of first few prominent faces in the Indian media who has enjoyed as much of a celebrity status as  her many interviewees. However, a lot of the news around her has been quite negative; whether it was the controversy around her allegedly giving out sensitive information of location of the troops during the Kargil war or her reporting of the attack on the Taj wherein her reporting was used by terrorist handlers sitting in Pakistan to get a grasp of the situation and to instruct the terrorists who were in the Taj. With a Facebook group called “Barkha Dutt for worst senior journalist on the planet” (2447 followers), let’s just say that she wasn’t always exactly the most sought-after role model.

The second problem was that there has recently been a rather negative reaction against the way mainstream press either trivializes or sensationalizes major news. Whether it was the way they kept disparaging the CWG preparations without talking about the positives, the ridiculous coverage of Prince slipping into the well, the constant stream of depressing news and especially the smugness of the fourth estate in defending themselves against allegations of harming interests and people’s lives (like in the Taj attacks) in the interest of creating awareness around the issue. There was already this huge pushback against the media for this problem but there was no spark to light the fire.

Manu Joseph provided that spark. He provided tapes that basically insinuated that Barkha Dutt (who was one of the most prominent faces of the media against which this pushback arose) was not just a self-centered reporter who never gave a damn about the consequences of her actions (all alleged) but she was also a power-hungry broker between the Congress and the DMK. The wall broke. OPEN Magazine, a hereto unknown magazine, was now in the spotlight. It provided the people with a singular point of focus to talk about what was wrong in the media. And OPEN got a shortcut to the moral high-ground by taking on one of its own when no other media house (except Outlook) agreed to break the news. OPEN had another important thing going on for them. With the big media houses refusing to take on the issue (including Barkha’s own NDTV), and with Barkha’s rather terse reply to the tapes scandal, it seemed like a small media publication was now taking on the largest of its own fraternity in the interest of the truth. A perfect David vs. Goliath story around which the rest of the dissatisfaction of big media coalesced. After all, who doesn’t like to support the underdog? Manu used these two points (The pursuit of the truth and the David vs. Goliath) and played them like a master in the panel discussion. And unfortunately, instead of playing against him, Barkha was playing with him. Shooting regular self-goals to speak

Manu knew that he was on slightly shaky ground. While there was a legitimate discourse on what Barkha had done, he himself was not washed in milk either. He had not contacted the principles, he had published raw tapes without context and more importantly, he had even insinuated charges of quid pro quo, corruption and go-betweens even though he did not explicitly say so (he even regretted using the word go-between in one of his SMS to Barkha). Further, given Barkha’s original clarification as well, he knew that the allegations may get watered-down if the on-air debate between him and Barkha reached a final conclusion on what she had done was a lack of judgement. He decided to play to the masses.

If you follow OPEN Magazine’s twitter stream, even before the show started, they said that Manu Joseph had agreed to attend a panel discussion in NDTV’s own studio (David entering Goliath’s lair) on the condition that the entire discussion was aired absolutely unedited (the pursuit of truth and transparency). He automatically grabbed the first-mover advantage yesterday on the path to the ethical high-ground.

Now onto the interview part itself:

If you look at the interview, Manu kept re-iterating on one point and one point alone: Barkha was not answering the question that lay at the crux of the issue: When a PR person who was known to be affiliated with telecom companies expressed an interest in the appointment of the telecom minister, why did she not think it was a big story? It was a brilliant attack for only one reason: He wanted Barkha to choose between two devils: The lack of competence and intelligence to see a big story when it stared at her face or a lack of integrity for playing along with Radia. Even if Barkha knew the game, she could not really admit to either one. Manu knew that and that’s why he kept saying “Yes. Yes. Yes.  I will answer all your questions!” and “I have an answer to that” because it always ended with “First, you answer my question.” Simple. He never had to answer her questions till the end! I’m not saying he didn’t have an answer. It’s just that he didn’t need to answer it because he knew that Barkha would not give him the answer he was seeking. Even in the last few moments, when he even admitted that he was trying to represent Open Magazine and that various people have agendas when they call up the magazine’s editor (basically agreeing with Barkha). He knew she could not give him the answer he needed to stop re-iterating the point. Barkha first tried to take a middle route saying that it was a lapse in judgement, not in breaking the story, but not taking Radia seriously. Honestly, no one was satisfied with the answer.

Then she made her fatal mistake. She started attacking Manu on his journalistic integrity. There was no question that she should have done that. However, it was for another time. It should have been raised after she could shut-up Manu on this question. Even if she had apologized for what she had done and basically accepted a lapse in judgment on not breaking the story, immediately, the interview would have no other option but to turn in the direction of what Manu had done on his part. Attacking him without closing his question made it look like she attacked him to defend herself of her actions when they actually were two different aspects that should have been discussed separately. When Manu finally said “You thought that a PR person representing two telecom companies discussing the appointment of a telecom company is not news? That is the news of the decade!” (I am totally paraphrasing it), he knew that the discussion was coming to an end and he knew it might be his time to sit on the hot seat. Fortunately for him, Barkha spent so much time not giving him what he wanted, questions that were directed at him were watered down due to the paucity of time. Plus, the discussions unfortunately got so frequently interrupted by the other panelists that Manu had the advantage of re-iterating the question several times, hence prolonging that aspect (I have to say extremely critical question) of the discussion. Even his constant ability to take the high ground was amazing. Barkha says “Our viewers should know that” indicating that no one knew that Open Magazine did not contact NDTV before printing the story. Manu once again deflects the issue with a  “They will know everything right now”. The race to the high moral ground? Manu reached there by standing on frickin’ Barkha’s shoulders.

Manu also brilliantly portrayed his acceptance to the discussion as entering the lion’s den to well, bell the cat (Apologize for the mixed metaphor puns). With flippant comments like “Well, it’s your office, you can say whatever you like”, he immediately got onto the role of David. These are the kind of comments which if used in a court of law, get overruled but still stick to the minds of the jury (people watching the show) like flypaper. It was a totally unfair statement which was not even relevant to the discussion at hand. In fact, all Barkha said was “I would like to put forth my views as well”. Even other comments like “There is the guy standing there with a sign saying “Time’s up!” created two impressions: One was that the panel was not necessary completely in control of what was going on. And two, that NDTV was in more than a little flurry to close the discussion. Both, I would have to admit not true. But look at the Twitter feed. It is alight with several opinions that the discussion was cut off too fast and without adequate resolution. And who decided the format of the show? The length of the show? When the discussion should stop? The moderator, Sonia Singh and NDTV. Huge victory for Manu.

Further, pairing Barkha Dutt with Sonia Singh gave an impression that NDTV was bringing in the big guns to take on Manu. If they had just brought in a neutral moderator and let Barkha and Manu have it on one-on-one, things would be different. Somehow, I feel Sonia was not brought in to help Barkha demolish Manu but to keep the famed Dutt-temper in control. At times, you can see Barkha nodding her head while looking in Sonia’s direction. It is the typical reaction of someone who is getting a signal to “control your temper” and the reaction is around “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it”. Anyways, that too worked against NDTV and Barkha.

Barkha fucked up a lot too. I mean, this was trial by media. There was no judgement based on the facts and the data. Barkha was deemed guilty even before the interview. She had to back down and just be polite and sweet to Manu. Despite the fact that that might actually kill her. She had to first decimate the notion that 1. This was not David vs. Goliath but two people having a difference of opinion and 2. She was not going to turn this interview into a “If I am wrong,  what about you?” defense to the debate. She failed at both. Barkha smiled at Manu the way that wolves smile at sheep. Her eyes were like AK-47s. She lost her cool when Manu refused to do the same.

Attacking Manu both on his own integrity and the point around shifting of goal-posts were absolutely correct but the timing was wrong. Her approach was wrong. And frankly, so was her countenance. You could see the difference in Manu’s face when he attacked her and her face when she attacked him. Manu looked agitated that he was not getting to the truth of the tapes. Barkha just looked like she hated Manu and was trying to get back at him. If she could have only closed his questions with a satisfactory answer or atleast for 5 minutes isolated everyone else from the discussion and closed a one-on-one with Manu and then got back to Manu afterwards, she could have seriously diluted his victory (all opinions from the Twitter feeds and my first impressions). She should have waited for all the opening remarks to be done rather than waiting for 5 minutes into Manu’s question before getting into the issue. I’m not debating that the best defense is an attack. But in this case, Barkha really didn’t have anything on Manu in terms of OPEN doing similar kinds of activities. So when she attacked him, it kept looking like she was foaming at the mouth to come after him personally.

Barkha had asked a very valid question “Why me?” which Manu replied to as “Not all of them are pretty”. That was Barkha’s only gambit in an otherwise brilliant attack on Manu. She should have hammered him on that. “Thanks but really why me?” But her fury got the better of her. The only thing she came up as a reply was “sexist”  and “misogyny” and that didn’t win her many supporters either. What Manu did was trivialize a very important question and got away with it. He too had to choose between two distasteful choices and took an  arrow on that simply so that no one would further that discussion. It had nothing to do with sexism or misogyny. It was everything to do with taking on a very strong personality in a sector that had come under fire for sometime to basically sensationalize an issue under the blanket of the truth. Sonia let Manu off easily with a comment on sexism.

Frankly, this was the time for Manu to shine ! Brilliant quotes:

• “The source is the story” and
• “That is the story of the decade”
• “it is an error of judgment of enormous proportions”
• “I’m not saying I’m morally superior to you, i m asking you to answer the question”

Funnily, the question was never answered but now a lot of people still feel that Barkha was wrong. No one is really answering the question “What was she wrong about”. Her rudeness, her lack of common courtesy accorded to people who walk into her studios, her ability to keep her cool and answer to the point? Does that really talk about her corruptibility or her power-mongering? Her biggest problem is that people link her ability to give a direct answer and being defensive to her being corrupt and a political power-broker. People got really pissed off with her. Not many opinions have changed either way. Opinions have just managed to become more consolidated/ more rigid around the issue.

Some other general observations:

• Barkha should have shut up in the final closing comments. In one minute, she isolated even the others who had a balanced view
• And lots of crushing on Manu Joseph (as in women having crushes on  Manu Joseph) going on in Twitter. That’s the power of being both new, presentable and in the eye of a storm at the same time.

Other posts on the same:

Raktha Hoon Main Khulla (The Great Bong at his hilarious best)

A Too-Argumentative Barkha Dutt Squanders Chance (on similar lines)

Fundoo tweet comments I came across:

@rainaamit: Manu Joseph doesn’t know how cabinet is formed says barkha. True how will he know. You lobbied, not him #barkhagate #Mediamafia

sanchayan Manu joseph, aa jaa teri toh. Mere pass NDTV hain, twitter hain , reputation hain.. tere paas kya hain. Manu : Ek question ..

sidvee Until now, everyone asks ‘why did she do this story’. Now one guy asks her ‘why didn’t she do the story’. Poor @BDutt

thesatbir #ndtv RT @mahadevan_j: how i wish i had a bos like Pranoy Roy who lets me screw up and then gives me a platform to screw up in public again

gkhamba WHOA! Barkha to Manu: I don’t think you have an understanding of how politicial journalism. #OHNOSHEDIDNT!

bhupeshrai @BDUTT: Barkha you missed a point. Manu Joseph came to YOUR studio, to ask YOU questions.Not to get yelled at hysterically avoiding answers.

Gunjan47 @BDUTT On second thought Manu Joseph knows which story to pursue to sell his magazines – only he shld know cheap tricks don’t last too long

celebritypicks BTW now that manu joseph is celebrity, someone somewhere must be googling ‘manu joseph nude pics’

Chanakya_Quotes Dear Manu Joseph you lost all respect by calling Barkha Dutt –> ” PRETTY ” Now this is not even a error in judgement

anoopc Yesterdays argument between Manu Joseph and Barkha on #ndtv about the Niira Radia tapes wud put Rakhi Ka Insaaf to shame

BDUTT (yep, the lady herself) Manu Joseph claims my source was the “real ” story. What if his source who has leaked selective tapes is the “

chandruvee @gsurya @bdutt @swapan55 better to ignore Manu Joseph he behaved like a jerk only after free publicity

gurugantaal Barka last tweeted 4 hours back ‘tonight at 10 I take questions’ Manu Joseph gave her the answer. #barkhagate

sanjukta Manu Joseph-”One part of journalism is also a consequences of someone else motive” No prize for guessing what was Manu’s motive

nuc247 @bdutt was right abt sexism. Only Manu Joseph had the balls

josephpj Last night Barca trashed Real. Tonight Bar-kha got trashed by Man-U ! #mediamafia #barkhagate Manu Joseph

Mine: So a man(u) walks into a bar(kha)

Zynga – the Remix

Well, I have to be honest. Some of my most creative ideas come in when I’m harassing my friends. And this one came up when Z was busy watering her plants (isn’t that what you people do on Farmville). Obviously, I went on and on about what a waste of time and so on and she kept cribbing about how I should shut up if I couldn’t understand the incredibly brilliant process of wasting time. Anyways, suddenly I go “You know what would be interesting? If you could just be a Mafia ganglord and go around collecting hafta or protection money. If they say “no”, you get your gang together and burn their fuckin’ farm!” And then that went on and on about how I could kidnap the farmer’s daughter or basically cut off a horse’s head (a.k.a Godfather style) and generally, do a lot of crap.

Anyways, now that I think about it…why not? Why doesn’t Zynga just open up these platforms and allow everyone to just get on and remix their environments e.g. vampires may be cheaper to use as gurkhas than paying off the mafia so there will be an ultimate deathmatch between the mafia and the vampires. However, you don’t periodically feed pets to the vampires, they turn on you for human blood. Oh. It’s not just gore. I can use the wheat and flour I grow to set up my own restaurant (Talk about vertical integration). Open the platform some more and let people start building an age of empires kind of thing where I can buy someone else’s farm or set up my own sugar processing factory. The Kerala version could also include strikes and stuff . Right now all this from the top of my head. Maybe I could set up a library from my bookshelf app and actually loan out books and stuff. Don’t know. This could get interesting!!

Cruel thoughts

Well one of the points of arguments between engineering and CA that favors the engineer is that the laws of engineering and mathematics are defined by the Gods (or whoever) while those of CA are by the ICAI and whoever consitutes the US GAAP committee (or whatever).

My understanding of accounting was best captured in my status message on GTalk: “Debit what comes in, credit what goes out. What comes in must go out. Hence, double entry! (Or was that a double entendre).”

I was just wondering….if I had enough money to “influence” these committees, I’d love to fuckin’ reverse these rules every 5 years. So it would be like “This is the year of debit what goes out and credit what comes in unlike the last year”. Unlike, the laws of engineering, this won’t really kill anybody (Except those rank holders of the “debit what comes in and credit what goes out” variety who would probably perform seppaku). Oh and the best part? There are 3 couplets of these “fundamental” or “golden” rules of accounting. That gives you 6 combinations to fuck around with….one year, all reversed, the next year only for real accounts, the next real and nominal……and so on. Given that for only one set, these buggers take 3 years to learn, it should be fun if they had to go through the same rigor for each of the 6 combos (even more fun when we change the rules every 5 years and they need 3 years just to get certified in it). Spend 18 years studying while us engineers, B.Arts, B.Com and BBAs do what’s really important (Fucking Around the Country Side)

He ! He ! :evil grin:

Jerm IX

May sound lazy but ’nuff sai. More of JermIX’s work here

From the Wooster.

Real life man PacMan

Roombas as PacMan

It wasn’t just cool enough to design a Roomba, now it’s even cooler to hack it! For all those too lazy to Google “Roomba”, it was designed as an autonomous vaccuum cleaner that could navigate itself around the room sensing and avoiding obstacles placed in its path.

What this crazy team has done is “hacked” open the 5 Roomba cleaners and created a PacMan game out of it. Albeit it’s relatively slow but still extremely cool to visualize. I especially love the different modes that have been configured such as “Normal”, “chase” when the ghosts “see” PacMan and “run” when PacMan eats those power boosters or whatever they are called. Further, PacMan actually signals the monsters to return to the beginning when it gets caught. Too cool! And yes, there is a wireless connection between the joystick controlled by the operator and the Roomba that is designated as PAcMan.

Should I be surprised that these guys are researchers who have also built their own Unmanned Aerial System software suite?

Check out the video

via BoingBoing

Ted Talks – Larry Lesig

Lawrence Lessig is the foremost authority on copyright law. His two books: Code 2.0 and the more popular Free Culture talks about an out-standing, far reaching consequence of excessive copyright protection which is:

1. Does a customer have the right to modify the content of a media he has purchased

2. Does this type of self-expression or what Larry calls “read-write culture” violate notions or the intent of copyright beyond what the law states

Also see Lessig’s old blog here. The ideas are still fresh and relevant