Zopa -a new banking model

Zopa - The first lending and borrowing exchange. Its a site that enables peer to peer lending.

They have an interesting model of banking. The typical banking model is for people to deposit their money in a bank and the bank then lends that money to other people, making tons of money by charging a high interest rate for the borrowers and providing a much lower rate for the depositers.

Zopa, on the other hand, connects lenders and borrowers directly. Done completely online, they ensure that your lending is spread across lenders to reduce the risk. They do the background and credit check of the lenders. They make money for themselves by taking a 1% cut.

Going by the Business 2.0 article, this service would be the equivalent of Skype for banking. Not that with the proliferation of this model banks would be out of service. For now, this service helps people get loans with low interest rate while also providing an alternate investment option. Banks, on the other hand, provide a whole gamut of service not convered by this model.

This service, in fact, is very similar to the money-lending co-op programs set up in some villages in India. Those co-ops free the people from the clutches of the high-interest charging local money lenders. The co-ops get the money to lend from the members who contribute when they have a surplus, and then provide loans through the co-op to their neighbours and fellow villagers.

CircleLending is another website I frequently hear on radio (in the form of ads) that specializes in managing loan transaction between relatives and friends. I have'nt explored this service much, but would be interesting to find more about them.

Prosper is another website that provides an online marketplace for people-to-people lending.

Passion

Inspiration: Knowing When to Quit

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame says in that:
"If everyone exposed to a product likes it, the product will not succeed."

"The reason that a product “everyone likes” will fail is because no one “loves” it. The only thing that predicts success is passion, even if only 10% of the consumers have it. For example, I’m willing to bet that when the TV show Baywatch was tested, 90% of the people rolled their eyes and gave it a thumbs down. But I’ll bet 10% of the test audience had tents in their pants. Bingo."

Extend the same concept to work. To be really good at work, it is necessary to be good at what it takes to do it. But it is more important to be passionate about it. I am willing to bet that the people who really succeed at work are not the brilliant. Its the people with absolute passion for the work. They believe in their work. They believe in their contribution. My 2 cents. Your thoughts?

Cows

This blog entry is about blogger Arzan who blogs about blogger Amit Verma's habit of blogging about cows. Arzan wants to buy Amit a cow. Lets show our support. Amit is a very good blogger.

Cows are fun (and happy if they are from California). They can make excellent pets. Seriously. People have dogs and cats as pets. Why not cows? Ya they can kinda of get big but certainly worth the trouble.

Men & games

Study: Men delay medical care when the game's on

"A drop in the number of men going to the emergency room during sports broadcasts on TV is followed by a surge afterward, reports an ER doctor who reviewed case numbers over three years at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore."

So, theoritically, if there is a game on TV forever, men would not go the ER. Does this mean one way to keep the ERs less crowded is to have games 24X7 on TV??? Then ERs would only have women visiting. Such fun.

Obey The Master

Driver obeys navigation system, no matter what

It is sometimes amazing what people do. Or rather, what they choose to listen and what not to. What were they thinking? The nav. system knows better?

C-Map

C-Map

C Map - Connectivity map - A very interesting application of data mining. Scientists have created a map that connects the existing drugs to diseases. It uses human genome to systematically put the language of diseases and the language of drug in the same plane. Certain genes turn on or off based on the disease. So cells with diseases and and those treated by the drugs are compared in terms of their genetic signature and then linked in the map.

This map can be used to figure out what drugs are near a given drug. Given a disease, it can also be used to find what other diseases are near that. (Nearness could be defined through various means - one example being Euclidean distance.) It could be used to find new drugs, new uses of old drugs, etc. Very exciting.

Richshaw

Pitt, Jolie take rickshaw ride in India

Looks like Brad Pitt and Jolie took a ride in the beloved autorickshaw in Pune, India. Makes me wonder how much they were charged. Were they charged by the meter or did they pre-negotiate a price? And did they wave down an auto on the road?

Would the price they paid matter if they, as consumers, thought it was a fair deal and enjoyed the ride? Because they are very rich, would it be ok to charge them more than the regular for the same service?

In India, it was (not sure if it still is) common to charge more the non citizens for the same service. Always wondered why. Why should that be? I never liked that.

Not that I want a price forced on people. I don't mind private businesses setting a price and letting market forces decide if that is a fair price. But the government deciding to charge someone more based on some arbitary condition does'nt sound fair.

Writing vs. Programming

http://paulgraham.infogami.com/blog/writingvshacking

An interesting article on why writing is more difficult than programming. The crux is, in programming, there is a specific target - you can define what is correct and test if your code does it or not. With writing, how do you determine that? Yes you could set a specific objective in terms of what the piece needs to convey. But it could convey one thing to one and something else to someone else.

"I think good writers can push writing in the direction of Lego. As you get more willing to discard and rewrite stuff, you approach that feeling of total control you get with Lego and hacking. If there's something you don't like, you change it. At least, as I've gotten better at writing that's what's happened to me. I've become much more willing to throw stuff away."

I wish I could.

How to wake up?

One option is to read this wikihow on how to wake up without an alarm clock.

Or create a personalized alarm.

"Smoke alarms equipped with this personalized recording of a worried mother's voice were significantly better at waking up children in a deep sleep and enabling them to perform a simulated escape procedure than standard residential tone alarms, a new study found."

Such fun. (Inspiration from India Uncut.)

Stars

I am talking about the real stars - the astronomical objects. Whenever I visit places like Yosemite or Yellowstone, one of the things that really amazes me is the number of stars I see in the night sky. I wonder why is it I can see so many stars over there while I am not able to see so many back in the Bay Area. I assumed its got to do with the pollution and how clear the sky is that night. Once I return to the city, I forget all about it and never bother to figure it out. Then, I come across this:

Lights out in Iceland for view of night sky.

Now I can understand why I am able to see more stars in places with relatively less human activity and less artifical light. Is'nt that ironic? Light is supposed to enable us to look at things better. Yet it is the very light that prevents us from seeing the stars that are so beautifully scattered around in the sky.

This reminds me of a story I read when I was a kid. There was a kingdom known for the noise. Everyone was loud, everything was noisy. Silence was unheard of. The young prince, for his birthday, asked his dad, the king, to hear the loudest noise possible. The king ordered everyone to make as much noise possible at a specified time. Someone had an idea - I will not make any noise so that I can hear a very loud noise without getting caught up in the process of making some. The idea got into the hands of some more and pretty soon everyone had the same idea in their minds. The time came and everyone remained absolutely silent, hoping everyone else will make some very loud noise. Gosh. Was it silent. For the first time, everyone heard the birds. They could hear the wind. It was beautful.

As much as it tempting to get philosophical at this point, I shall refrain from it. You get the point.

Clever Shopping bags

Check out these funny shopping bags. Pretty neat. I wish more shops put in some thought into thier bags, making it something I would like to carry around. Think of all the free advertisements the shop/establishment would get if shoppers reused those bags while shopping at other places. Free publicity plus less trash to process.