Lessons from my motorcycle ride in Ladakh

I just came back from 900KM+ motorcycle ride trip in Ladakh. The route were various hills and passes in the western Himalayas (Ladakh range). The roads are said to be amongst most dangerous roads to drive in the world and Kardung La is the highest motor able pass whereas Chang La is the third highest motor able pass in the world. 

Few things that I learnt through this trip are:
1) Learn to breathe: Breathing happens unconsciously and we don't realise the importance of breathing. At high altitude breathing is a task by itself and has to be performed as a conscious activity and it doesn’t just happen. So before you set to do any other activity you have to remember to breathe! If you breathe (both inhaling and exhaling are important) right then the activity becomes easy. I’m sure this is very important at places with normal altitude as well and it focusing on breathing may allow controlling yourself in emotional, stressful or situation of rage.
On the flip side at 18k feet when breathing was really difficult I also realized what old age must feel like. Breathing becomes difficult task at that altitude and helps understanding the importance of enjoying life while young. Old age is tough and don’t wait to enjoy until you turn old – because the most difficult thing then might be to just breathe ☺

2) Focus on your goals: Motorcycle riding has to start early in the morning to avoid high level of water from the melting snow. Sound sleep is important and the neighbors in tents or hotel rooms may not always agree with your schedule and be noisy. It’s important to focus on your own goals and let others do what they want. They may not always block you from things that you want to do but may be deterring you from focusing on your goals. 
You’ll also find lots of inconsiderate drivers who share road with you and might annoy you and make you lose your temper but if you focus on enjoying your ride and making it to your destination then it becomes a whole lot easier and enjoyable. So if you just focus on your own goals and help colleagues with similar goals to focus then the noise disappears and goals seem feasible.

3) Sometimes journey is equally or more important: Most of the days we went riding there was little to do at the destination. The destination often had awe-inspiring scenery but not activity after dark. I immediately realized that it wasn’t just the destination that was beautiful – the whole journey offered such awe-inspiring views and the motorcycle riding offered freedom to stop anywhere and enjoy and thus making the journey more important than just reaching the destination.

So here are some photos from the trip for you to enjoy and if you agree with above things without going through the same experience then please learn to breathe, stay focused on your goals and enjoy the journey of life!

State of online ad inventory

Three old Jewish friends are sitting around the park, feeding the pigeons and lamenting over how tough things are. "Oy vey," says the one. "Things are so tough in the garment business these days. We have to discount everything by 50 percent. Can you imagine that? Two for the price of one? It's ridiculous!"

"You think that's bad," says the second one. "The watch business is so crazy right now, we literally give away our watches at cost in order to break even."

The third one interjects: "You lucky, lucky bastards. The jewellery business is so bad right now; we give away diamonds for free and throw in $1,000 per transaction in the process!"

The other two look puzzled and say, "How on Earth do you make any money?"

"Don't worry," says the third, "we make it up on volume."

This is an ode to all the publishers out there who have original content but still choose to do business by competing with content aggregators who mooch original content and deploy better content finding strategies and rank better than the ones with the original content. Whats more pitiful - original content owners don't care to provide quality metrics such as the engagement of readers, neither care to measure it nor do much to deploy any content finding strategies.

Decision making without data (gambling)

Decision making without any base data (not 100% of decisions should be taken based on the data - that would turn us into droids) is just like gambling.

George Washington said about gambling and can also apply to decisions made with gut feeling in today's age: "Gambling is child of avarice, the brother of iniquity and the father of mischief. This is a vice which is productive of every possible evil... in a word, few gain by this abominable practice, while thousands are injured."

Avarice-> Only lazy people don't want to put effort in finding data and reason within the data.
Iniquity -> No data - surely does involves politics and biased judgement as there is no rationale.
Mischief -> More a cause of nuisance for the sane and rational people.

A potion made of above three is nothing short of organizational evil and thus can only result in bad things for most and only a select few gain out of it.