Top 50 Thinkers

There can be as much value in the blink of an eye as in months of rational analysis.
- Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

...I only know of eleven of them. Two are great bloggers - Seth Godin and Scott Adams.

Sunstop Media in association with Skillsoft produced this list of Top 50 Thinkers. The list basically answers the question, "Who is the most influential living management thinker?" The thinkers are chosen by business people, consultants, academics and MBA students throughout the world based on ten criteria. These are originality and practicality of ideas, presentation style, written communication, loyalty of followers, business sense, international outlook, rigors of research, impact of ideas and guru factor.

Top Ten Fighter Aircraft

There is an art, it says, or rather, a knack to flying.
The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

Here are the top ten fighter aircrafts according to the Discovery Channel. Criteria include kill ratio, fear factor, innovation, production, and service length.

10. F/A 22 Raptor


9. Sea Harrier FA/2


8. Sopwith Camel 112


7. ME 262


6. Spitfire



The next two planes tied for the fourth place.
4. Mig15


4. F86 sabre


3. F4 Phantom


2. F15C Eagle


1. P-51D Mustang

Roger Murdock: We have clearance, Clarence.
Captain Oveur: Roger, Roger. What's our vector, Victor?
- Airplane! (1980)

A Little Nightmare Music

The concert begins. The music is sublime.
Not even a pin would dare drop.
Suddenly, a cellphone rings and the madness starts.
- Igudesman and Joo

Indeed all hell breaks loose when the violinist loses his bow to a vacuum cleaner and the pianist plays the piano upside down. More so when Mozart's 40th Symphony blends with the James Bond theme.

Though exaggeration aside, Aleksey Igudesman and Richard Hyung-Ki Joo performed remarkably well. Listening to I Will Survive is very entertaining. Then hearing Michel Legrand's Les Parapluies de Cherbourg incorporated in it is pretty enjoyable.

Meanwhile, check out the 40th Symphony played with bottles and the violin version of the Super Mario Theme.

Brothers & Sisters

Tommy: Hand me a screwdriver.
You know what a screwdriver looks like, don't you?
Kevin: It's orange and comes in a glass with ice.

Cooper (singing): Jingle bells, batman smells,
Robin laid an egg,
Batmobile lost its wheel and the Joker got away, hey!

What if you find out that you are not in the family picture and the photo is even posted by your mom on the wall of your living room? What if you discover that you have another sibling aside from the ones you have now? Then when you meet her, what if you have this urge to pull a strand of her hair to check if her DNA is a match to your dad's? On your mom's birthday party, what if an adult video finds its way on the presentation tribute for your mom? What if you are getting married while a sibling of yours is on the verge of having divorce? And so on....

You could actually create great stories just by asking the proverbial "What if". And Brothers & Sisters did it in a way that is decent, funny, witty, humorous and touching. If there is a sitcom better than Desperate Housewives, I would say that it would be Brothers & Sisters.

[Update: There has been a buzz in the blogosphere about Teri Hatcher, playing as Susan Mayer, in Desperate Housewives throwing a line that says, “Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas? Coz I would just like to make sure they are not from some med school in the Philippines.” Check a videoclip and some discussions that strike a raw nerve. Although there might be some truth in the statement especially when placed side by side with the nursing exam debacle last year, I still find it offensive because it somehow committed the fallacy of over-generalizing. The fact is that there are a lot of great medical practitioners from the country and they must not be brushed aside especially when they outnumber the few who are otherwise. As for the said few, this might serve as an eye-opener and a signal to prove to those who are unimpressed that they are wrong to be so.]

When Cab Drivers Blog

I didn't know the city well
I often asked customers to tell me the way.
- Ihsan Aknur, Cab Driver

I was amused when I learned about Ihsan Aknur from Travel and Living. He is a cab driver in Istanbul, Turkey. And he has a website entitled The Best Taxi Driver. It is basically a website about his routes around the city and the people he met. Ihsan started it last 2000. He fondly remembered how his fellow taxi drivers laughed when he began to learn English back in 1982. Most of the words he learned were romantic like: "I love you," "You have pretty eyes," "Are you married," "What are you doing tonight," and "I've never seen a pretty woman like you". Then when he created his own website, again his friends laughed. Now he is working with Çiragan Palace Hotel Kempinski taxi station and he just acquired a new taxi.

Ishan's making of website got me thinking that perhaps the cab drivers in the Philippines could do likewise as well. They would probaby do great in making travel blogs. Though my guess is that they would likely produce political blogs.

Gone Running

If you went running
when you first started thinking about it,
you'd be back by now.
- Nike

NOTCOT points us to the interactive "Gone Running" clock of Nike. It provides us with every bit of justification on why one should be running. Here are some favorites.

12:00 AM - Run like there's no tomorrow. Oh wait, it is tomorrow.
3:30 AM - Pondering your existence is best when done at a 10-minute pace.
4:30 AM - The most peaceful time to run? When the world's still asleep.
4:45 AM - Prove your busy calendar wrong. Make time for a run.
6:30 AM - March to the beat of your own drum. Run to the beat of your own heart.
8:30 AM - One hour running makes the next 8 more productive.
10:30 AM - Seeing your crush isn't the only way to make your heart beat faster.
11:00 AM - Brainstorm your plan for world domination on your next run.
11:15 AM - Keep your running friends close. Keep your running enemies at least two blocks back.
12:45 PM - Your favorite lunch spot is 3 miles away.
4:00 PM - Your best self is waiting at the finish line.
6:00 PM - You're just one mile away from a better mood.
9:15 PM - You might run into your soul mate. Or at least a squirrel.
9:45 PM - The internet will be here when you get back. Promise.

Creative Cities

Minds fructify across generations and oceans,
otherwise literature and art and music
would be empty interludes and ornament.
- George MacKay Brown

A previous post speaks about Edinburgh being the City of Literature as appointed by UNESCO. The said city belongs to the Creative Cities Network that UNESCO's Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity established in order to link the cities that make creativity an essential element of their economic development. UNESCO has appointed a number of Cities in the fields of Design, Folk Art, Music and Gastronomy. The Cities of Design are Berlin, Buenos Aires and Montreal. The Cities of Folk Art are Aswan and Santa Fe. The Cities of Music are Bologna, Seville, Oaxaca, and Salvador de Bahia. And finally the City of Gastronomy is Popayan.

I wonder if at least one of the cities of Philippines like Vigan, Baguio, Cebu and Manila would qualify for and be regarded as a City of Folk Art.

* The photo shown is that of Seville, featured by a travel blog as the travel photo of the day .

American Choppers in Australia

What are you doing here?
"I'm the chief fabricator and engineer.
You want an autograph?"
- Mikey

The Discovery Channel is currently featuring the American Choppers in Australia. Paul Teutul Sr. and his sons Paul Jr. and Mikey, were brought to the country last February 2007 by Tourism Australia and Discovery Networks to experience the best Australia has to offer and to design a Down Under-themed chopper. Aside from a visit to Russell Crowe's NSW farming property and a little cricket game with him, the undoubted softies toured incredible sights from the Harbour Bridge, Mrs Macquarie's Chair and Bondi Beach to Uluru and the Great Barrier Reef. The featured landmarks are simply marvelous that they compel admiration and make one arrange reservation right away at hotels in Sydney, or even at hotels in Melbourne or hotels in Brisbane.

In due course, Paul Jr. produced a bike that features the attractions of Australia. A map of the country was incorporated on the bike's gas tank. A mini-surfboard served as a cover for the belt drive. An illustration of Sydney's opera house was stamped on the taildragger fender. Boomerangs served as the wheels' spokes. The exhaust pipe was designed to look like a shark's tail. A snapshot of the Great Barrier Reef was painted on the oil's tank. And a kangaroo sign was displayed near the bike's engine. My only problem with the bike is that its handlebar is just too high that a small person won't be able to see the road. Just imagining the bike however makes one remember what Australia is all about.

City of Literature: Edinburgh

The motto of Edinburgh, as you might still see it,
I think, carved over the old castle gate,
is "Sic Itur ad Astra" - "This way to the stars."
- GK Chesterton

Anything that bears the word "literary" often almost fascinates me. The word is considered to be high level that it is usually attributed to things like the arts, scholars in the medieval ages, or to any writings valued for the quality of their forms. To be associated with it is quite overwhelming and unbelievable.

Would you believe for instance that there is already a City of Literature? And it is UNESCO who declares the place to be as such?

Edinburgh is the first City of Literature in 2004. And perhaps it is rightly to be so because it has more booksellers per capita than any other city in Britain. It is home as well to the first billion-dollar author JK Rowling and to an equally great writer Alexander McCall Smith.

I guess it must be time for me to check the classified ads and consider Edinburgh jobs.

The Best Title of the Day

"...Orange preparing to make deal with Apple in France."

- A post title referring to ongoing negotiations between Apple and Orange aiming at a deal for the French telecom operator to carry the iPhone.

Digital Frames

A while ago, I came across a site that features and sells lcd digital picture frames. As I learn more about the product, I can't help but be fascinated with it.

Basically, the digital photo frame creates slide shows of photos. A memory card can be plugged into it since it has a standard five-in-one card reader and a USB 2.0 connection. It also has a built-in stereo speakers, 1/8" headphone out, and an infrared remote control.

The frame is quite user-friendly in terms of transition of pictures. And the good thing about it is its compatibility with various formats like JPEG, MP4, DivX, AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP3, WMA, WAV. This means that you can play, aside from music, an entire movie in an avi format assuming that you have a 2GB memory card.

In that case, you may perhaps go one better than someone with a Zenith or Coby DVD player. Or you may even be on a par with someone who has an iPod video.

The Best Sentences of the Day

"I want to clarify, I'm not Fake Steve Jobs."

- Bill Gates, when introduced in a recent conference alongside Steve Jobs.

"You did the sleuthing. You put the pieces of the puzzle together. You went through my trash, hacked into my computer, and put listening devices in my home. Now you've ruined the mystery of Fake Steve, robbing thousands of people around the world of their sense of childlike wonder."

- Dan Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes, when found that he is the guy behind the Fake Steve Jobs.

Check the video here.

Top Ten People with the Coolest Jobs

My siblings and I were watching Travel and Living when one of us remarked that Tony Bourdain probably has one of the coolest jobs on earth, which is, traveling around the world while searching for the rare and sometimes dangerous foods.


Later, we came up with a list of people who have the coolest jobs. By cool, we mean the one-of-a-kind jobs that only a handful of people are associated to. Since one person is already mentioned, I am proceeding, without any particular order, to the next ones.

2. Andrea Mosconi - He is Cremona's official musical conservationist who basically maintains and preserves string instruments. His work involves the playing of 300-year-old violins made by the Amatis, Guarneris, and Stradivari to keep the instruments fit and sounding their best.


3. Mythbusters - Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman use their skills and expertise to test the validity of various rumors and urban legends in popular culture. Their experiments range from disproving the notion that a duck's quack echos to proving that a wine glass shatters if a person sings at the right tone.


4. Heinz Ketchup Taste Testers - According to the Discovery, there are only eight people who know the secret ingredient of the Heinz Ketchup. About four or five of them taste-test, which means that for a whole day, they take a lick of a sample of each packed ketchup to ascertain that the products meet the standards. And they have done just that for several years already.

5. Top Gear hosts - Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May must be thrilled by the constant need in them for speed. The privilege of being able to drive the crème de la crème cars of the century is sheerly priceless. The Top Gear though has constantly faced criticisms for its preference of performance over fuel efficiency and conservation. But that would be another story.


6. Just for Laughs/Gags Cast - Fooling around with people especially when they are strangers must be in some way pretty gratifying. It is all about the response of those we pull our pranks on that matters. I remember the reaction of a high school classmate when I took him by surprise in a dark hallway. To this day, the memory still makes me laugh. He bravely took the stance of some karate master and shouted in a trembling voice, "Hiya!"

7. US CEOs - Back in 1979, they were paid 55 times more than the average worker. In 2005, they were paid 465 times more.


8. Photographers - As to why, I point you to Gaya's Photography and Photographers.


9. Gondolier - There is a competitive exam that a potential gondolier has to pass before becoming one. And for the first time in the history, Venice seems to be finally considering a female gondolier to ply its famous canals.


10. Bloggers - Because they can produce a list like this and include themselves on it.

Bonus from Gaya:

This good-looking TV host looks cool doing her work.


But then, this guy seems to have the cooler aspect of the job.


Now, who do you think have the coolest jobs? Make your list!

The Best Classic Images of the Day

Played like a Fiddle


The Simple Life

Found thru Your Daily Art.

On the Haptic Clock and Lazy People

I've come to the conclusion today that there are always business opportunities when lazy people are around. I shall be telling more about this later. But here's a perfect example.

The Haptic Clock.








According to Future Feeder, it is a clock program for Java powered mobile phones that conveys time through a sequence of vibrations. Perfect for meetings, dates and lazy people. Wrist watches may not be worn again and mobile phones may never be pulled out to check time.

But here's the thing about it in relation to having business opportunities, lucky for the lazy people - it is free.

On Blogs and Haikus

The Anitokid's fixation on haikus is somewhat contagious that I've often caught myself haikuing as well.

Here's my haiku.

Bloghaiku

Blogs are like haikus
Create a five-seven-five,
You're ready to post.

Haikus are like blogs
Summon the words together,
Voilà! You have this.

According to Creative Writing (which reminded me of link trains), haikus have three lines with 5, 7 and 5 syllables respectively. Traditionally, they contain a reference to time or the seasons and a bug.

The Best Dinosaur Allegory of the Day

Earlier, I posted about the anecdote of flying dinosaurs as represented by the modern-day Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Recently, I found another dinosaur allegory.

"Some believe that the largest dinosaurs, sauropods, were so big from head to tale that when they hurt their tale, it took them a few minutes to even realize they were injured."

The statement is an analogy about Ford rumored to be selling its Volvo. Should the Swedish brand be sold, Ford would only realize the deed and perhaps the hurt after some time.

Transformers: Optimus Prime Versions

For some unfortunate reason, I have not watched the Transformers yet. I have only read a couple of blogs about it. And it is almost all about Optimus Prime. Faye for instance is convinced that Optimus Prime is the most gorgeous robot. I'm fascinated though with the Autobot that bears my favorite color, the Bumblebee or the Goldbug.

Anyway, I believe that there are various versions of Optimus Prime. Here are some findings.

1. Mr. Potato Head Transformer, Optimash Prime

Found thru the Key of N.

2. The real life Optimus Prime

Found thru Gaya.

3. And the prototype Optimus Prime (perhaps!)

Found thru Gaya.

On iPhones and Apple Products

I find the following postscript of Brandon McGee's blog entry about KISS (Keep It Simple Silly) in Mobile Banking as the best analogy of owning an iPhone and other Apple products.

"The iPhone does live up to the hype....I can't tell you the number of times...I felt like Batman loading up my utility belt with a personal phone, blackberry, camera, and iPod to head out for the day."

Speaking of which, the iPhone seems to work with the SMART network in the Philippines as this post says.

Meanwhile, the fake Steve Jobs points to the cheaper version of iPhone. And Seth Godin tackles about the sloppiness of Apple in naming its products.

The Best Anecdote of the Day

Here's a good anecdote of Dilbert on Boeing's newest jetliner, the 787 Dreamliner.

"Once upon a time there were dinosaurs. They died and decomposed and turned into oil. Millions of years later, humans turned that oil into plastic. Recently, plastic became the major building material for the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. There’s your proof that dinosaurs can fly."

For Dilbert, the 787 is a new form of life.