A complicated answer to a simple question

This is an interesting story.Even if you are bored..please do not forget to read the end of the article..

It concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of
Copenhagen:

Q."Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the Barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building." This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed immediately. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university
appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case.

The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did not display any noticeable knowledge of physics.

To resolve the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the
building can then be worked out from the formula H = .5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the
height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about
it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise
independence of mind and apply scientific methods,
undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only Dane to win
the Nobel prize for Physics and the teacher in question was Rutherford.

"Place Karade Place Karade "

The following is a spoof of Adnan Sami's famous song from our own adnan "Rajat Jain aka Rajat pheku" .So Guys read and enjoy.......
Thanks rajat for the song!!

Place Karaade
*****************************************
teeri oonchi shaan hai iift
meri arzi maan le iift
tu hai sab kuch jaanne waala
hum hai tere maanne waala
mujh ko bhi tu place karade...
hll nahin tho cts karade...
badaa nahin to choti hi kaaarade
summer placement tho karaadey

teeri oonchi shaan hai iift
meri arzi maan le iift
tu hai sab kuch jaanne waala
hum hai tere maan le waale
fin sales yaa IT dilaadey..
.project mumbbai mein karaadeya
chha sa project dilaadey
desh bhar ki sair karaadey
mujh ko bhi thu place karade...
hll nahin tho cts karade....

domestic dedey yaa intl deday
rupaya dedey yaa euro deday
dollar ya phir pound dilaadey
mujh ko thu place karaadey

koi chakkar thu chalaa iift
placecomm ko hila iift
ab tho mujh ko place karade
aur na ab taal iift
mujh ko bhi thu place karade
badaa nahin tho chotaa hi karadey

McKinsey mein ya GoldManSach mein
IBM ya SAP karaadey
Stipend tu pound mein dilaadey
Saath mein ek PPO dilaadey
PPO nahin tho PPI dilaadey
Noton ki barsaat kardey

Tunay khud hi tho kaha hai
Cent percent placement yahaan hai
Kab se ham log line mein khade hai
choti si tho placement karade
Is tension se thu mukti dilaadey
Desh bhar ki sair karaadey
Local train mein mujhe ghumaade
Kesay Kesay ko place karaya
Esay Weson ko place karaya
Mujh ko bhi thu place karade
Badaa nahin tho chotaa hi karade

teeri oonchi shaan hai iift
meri arzi maan le iift
tu hai sab kuch jaanne waala
hum hai tere maanne waale

hum ko bhi thu place karade
is torture se mukht karade

**************************************************************************

Ever Wondered How Companies Names Originated..???

Here is a list of how some of companies names have originated.Have wonderful Reading when you have free time.

*******************************************************************************
Adobe - came from name of the river Adobe Creek that ran behind thehouse of founder John Warnock.

Apache - It got its name because its founders got started by applyingpatches to code written for NCSA's http daemon. The result was 'APAtCHy'server -- thus, the name Apache

Jakarta (project from Apache) - A project constituted by SUN andApache to create a web server handling servlets and JSPs. Jakarta wasname of the conference room at SUN where most of the meetings betweenSUN and Apache took place.

Tomcat - The servlet part of the Jakarta project. Tomcat was the codename for the JSDK 2.1 project inside SUN.

Apple Computers - favorite fruit of founder Steve Jobs. He was threemonths late in filing a name for the business, and he threatened tocall his company Apple Computers if the other colleagues didn'tsuggest a better name by 5 o'clock.

C - Dennis Ritchie improved on the B programming language and calledit 'New B'. He later called it C. Earlier B was created by KenThompson as a revision of the Bon programming language (named afterhis wife Bonnie)

C++ - Bjarne Stroustrup called his new language 'C with Classes' andthen 'new C'. Because of which the original C began to becalled 'old C' which was considered insulting to the C community. Atthis time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C.

CISCO - it's not an acronym but the short for San Francisco.

Compaq - using COMp, for computer, and PAQ to denote a small integralobject.

Corel - from the founder's name Dr. Michael Cowpland. It stands forCOwpland REsearch Laboratory.

GNU - a species of African antelope. Founder of the GNU projectRichard Stallman liked the name because of the humor associated withits pronunciation and was also influenced by the children's song 'TheGnu Song' which is a song sung by a gnu. Also it fitted into therecursive acronym culture with 'GNU's Not Unix'.

Google - the name started as a boast about the amount of informationthe search-engine would be able to search. It was originallynamed 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by100 zeros. After founders - Stanford grad students Sergey Brin andLarry Page presented their project to an angel investor, theyreceived a cheque made out to 'Google'!

Hotmail - Founder Jack Smith got the idea of accessing e-mail via theweb from a computer anywhere in the world. When Sabeer Bhatia came upwith the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of namesending in 'mail' and finally settled for hotmail as it included theletters "html" - the programming language used to write web pages. Itwas initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

HP - Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard tossed a coin to decide whetherthe company they founded would be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett.

Intel - Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore wanted to name their newcompany 'Moore Noyce' but that was already trademarked by a hotelchain, so they had to settle for an acronym of INTegrated ELectronics.

Java - Originally called Oak by creator James Gosling, from the treethat stood outside his window, the programming team had to look for asubstitute as there was no other language with the same name. Javawas selected from a list of suggestions. It came from the name of thecoffee that the programmers drank.

LG - combination of two popular Korean brands Lucky and Goldstar.

Linux - Linus Torvalds originally used the Minix OS on his systemthat he replaced by his OS. Hence the working name was Linux (Linus'Minix). He thought the name to be too egotistical and planned to nameit Freax(free + freak + x).His friend Ari Lemmk encouraged Linus toupload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linusa directory called linux on his FTP server, as he did not like the nameFreax.(Linus' parents named him after two-time Nobel Prize winner LinusPauling)

Lotus (Notes) - Mitch Kapor got the name for his company from 'TheLotus Position' or 'Padmasana'. Kapor used to be a teacher ofTranscendental Meditation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Microsoft - coined by Bill Gates to represent the company that wasdevoted to MICROcomputer SOFTware. Originally christened Micro-Soft,the '-' was removed later on.

Motorola - Founder Paul Galvin came up with this name when hiscompany started manufacturing radios for cars. The popular radiocompany at the time was called Victrola.

Mozilla - When Marc Andreesen, founder of Netscape, created a browserto replace Mosaic (also developed by him), it was named Mozilla(Mosaic-Killer, Godzilla).The marketing guys didn't like the namehowever andit was re-christened Netscape Navigator.

ORACLE - Larry Ellison and Bob Oats were working on a consultingproject for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name forthe project was called Oracle (the CIA saw this as the system to giveanswers to all questions or something such). The project was designed tohelp use the newly written SQL code by IBM. The projecteventually was terminated but Larry and Bob decided to finish whatthey started and bring it to the world. They kept the name Oracle andcreated the RDBMS engine. Later they kept the same name for thecompany.

Red Hat - Company founder Marc Ewing was given the Cornell lacrosseteam cap (with red and white stripes) while at college by hisgrandfather. He lost it and had to search for it desperately. Themanual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readersto return his Red Hat if found by anyone !

SAP - "Systems, Applications, Products in Data Processing", formed by 4ex-IBM employees who used to work in the'Systems/Applications/Projects' group of IBM.

SCO (UNIX) - from Santa Cruz Operation. The company's office was inSanta Cruz.

Sony - from the Latin word 'sonus' meaning sound, and 'sonny' a slangused by Americans to refer to a bright youngster.

SUN - founded by 4 Stanford University buddies, SUN is the acronymfor Stanford University Network. Andreas Bechtolsheim built amicrocomputer; Vinod Khosla recruited him and Scott McNealy tomanufacture computers based on it, and Bill Joy to develop a UNIX-based OS for the computer.

UNIX - When Bell Labs pulled out of MULTICS (MULTiplexed Informationand Computing System), which was originally a joint Bell/GE/MITproject, Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie of Bell Labs wrote a simplerversion of the OS. They needed the OS to run the game Space War that wascompiled under MULTICS.It was called UNICS - UNIplexed operating andComputing System by Brian Kernighan. It was later shortened to UNIX.

Xerox - The inventor, Chestor Carlson, named his product trying tosay `dry' (as it was dry copying, markedly different from the thenprevailing wet copying).The Greek root `xer' means dry.

Yahoo! - the word was invented by Jonathan Swift and used in his book'Gulliver's Travels'. It represents a person who is repulsive inappearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yangand David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

3M - Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company started off by miningthe material corundum used to make sandpaper.

***********************************************************************************

How ICICI or Other banks Cash Back Offer Works

Please read the discussion below to gain some insight as to how credit cards work.

Priya: I want to buy a Sony digital camera costing Rs.20,000, but I don?t have any cash right now.
Raj: Why don?t you use your ICICI Bank credit card? Never heard them say ? Hum Hain Na ??

Priya: I am quite skeptic about using these cards. I pay using the card, get a bill after 30 days and pay after another 20 days. This is a maximum of 50 days interest free loan. Why does any bank do it? If I borrow Rs.20,000 on personal loan at 11%. Interest to be paid for 50 days = Rs. 20,000 * 11% * (50/365) = Rs. 301.40. Here the bank is giving me a loan without interest when I use the credit card. Something is wrong somewhere!

Raj: Well? let me tell you how it works when you use your card to pay for the camera.
You present your ICICI Bank credit card ? a VISA card.
Sony World swipes your card on a machine provided by Citibank. Lets call Citibank ? the acquirer bank and the process of Sony World swiping the card on that machine ? requesting authorization .

Citibank communicates with the card issuer ? ICICI Bank through VISA Network to check if the card is valid and has the required credit limit.
ICICI Bank reviews and approves / declines which is communicated back to Sony World.
You sign a receipt called Sales Draft given by Citibank. This is the obligation on your part to pay the money to ICICI Bank. Data on this receipt can be captured electronically and transmitted. At the end of day or at the end of some period Sony World chooses:

Sony World submits the receipt you signed to Citibank who pays Sony World the money. Sony World pays Citibank a fee called Merchant Discount . Let us say this is 6% of the sale value = 6% * 20,000 = Rs. 1200
Citibank sends the receipt electronically to a Visa data center which in turn sends it to ICICI Bank. ICICI Bank transfers the money to a settlement bank which in turn transfers the funds to Citibank.

Citibank pays ICICI Bank an Interchange Fee of 4% of the sale value = 4% * 20,000 = Rs. 800
20 to 50 days later ICICI Bank gets the money from you ? and you don?t pay the interest!! Priya: Interesting! So Sony World pays more than the interest that I should have paid for the loan that I take. I, as a cardholder have the following benefits 1. Convenience of not having to carry cash. 2. Credit availability ? free of interest.
However what benefits does Sony World get for paying so much money? Isn?t it more profitable for them to take cash? They can save as much as Rs.1200.

Raj: Certainly. Some retail outlets offer you discounts if you pay by cash, don?t they? However when you don?t count the money that you are spending, you tend to buy more! Cards encourage this ? called impulse purchase . If you did not have access to credit, you would not have bought the camera this month ? or may be not any time soon either. By accepting cards, the merchant is actually extending you credit at the risk of the card issuer. He pays money to the banks to carry that risk.

Priya: So ICICI Bank uses this money to pay back to us when they announce 5% cash back. They insist that the Sales draft that I sign at the retailer should also be from ICICI Bank. This means they are saving on the Interchange Fee and also pay me a part of the Merchant Discount that they get.

Raj: Exactly! If you have noticed, ICICI Bank gives you the cash back in the next credit card statement. They keep the ?cash back? money for a maximum of 60 days before passing on a part to you. This accrues them interest too. Say if ICICI Bank earns an interest of 6% per annum for the cash they carry ? they get Rs.1000 * 6% * (60/365) = Rs. 10 That is not huge, but money nevertheless. And when you consider that almost everyone in this city shops with a credit card these days, it is a big sum.

Priya: And that also explains why banks tie up with petrol pumps ? like ICICI Bank has tied up with HPCL and I could re-fuel there without having to pay the fuel surcharge of 2.5%. The card issuer and the acquiring bank is the same and that saves interchange fees

International Economics Quiz -----(No One Can beat this Record)

Had Quiz on International Economics 2 days ago.The Paper is for 10 Questions,10 Marks all True/False Questions.Guess whats the score received by students.Its a record of Its kind...All the 60 getting 10/10 Marks.......Hmmmm it's not the case.Therz a rider to the Quiz ..Negative mark of 1 for each wrong answer........ Now the final results....... only 10-11 ppl got Positive marks and 7-8 got zero marks and . the teacher couldnot afford to give negative marks to the rest.The Highest marks are 4.Your beloved too is not in the positive list....Have one more test of it on Friday..lets see if we will break the previous record..
This week is full of exams...ARM(advanced research Method),International Economics, and POM(Production and Operations Management).Tomorrow therz a match in eden gardens and few souls are lucky enough to get tickets for the Match......

Floppy Finally Flops

After 36 years and billions of sales, the floppy disk is to join the video player, cassette deck and film camera on technology's scrapheap.The 9cm piece of plastic will no longer be available from Britain's biggest computer retailer.

PC World announced last night it would stop selling the disks when stocks ran out.Floppies were once considered among the most vital accessories to computer users and offices worldwide for holding data in an easy-to-store format, which could easily be transferred between PCs.

In 1998, 2billion were sold around the world and every computer would have an 'A-drive' to handle them.They would be the all-important backup in case computers crashed.But floppies hold only 1.44mb of data � now little more than a single song, one high resolution picture or a few dozen word-only documents.Instead, memory cards, CD/DVDs and memory sticks can hold up to 1,000 times as much data.

Only 700million floppies were sold globally last year � down from 2billion in 1998 � and 98 per cent of PCs no longer have an A-drive.PC World's Bryan Magrath said: 'The floppy looks increasingly quaint and simply can't compete.'The first floppy, introduced by IBM in 1971, was a 20cm disk holding just 100kb of data. Ten years later, Sony introduced the standard 9cm floppy.

In South Africa, the disks are known as 'stiffies' and in Finland as 'korppus', meaning biscuits.Video players were consigned to history in 2004, when retailer Dixons stop selling them.At least they outlasted the Betamax format tapes which all but disappeared in 1985 after a twoyear battle for supremacy with VHS.

Placements of 2005-07 Batch

The Placements of IIFT for 2005-07 batch were splendid.all the students have been placed in day 0.Many of financial companies have viisted the campus for the first time.
The highest salary was 16 lakhs and the average salary was around 10 lakhs...
Here is the press release by our placement committee regarding placements

*************************************************************************

IIFT grad bags $100-k offerAMITABH BAXITIMES NEWS NETWORK[ WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2007 12:00:00 AM]


NEW DELHI: Move over IIMs — the average benchmark salary for MBA grads is spilling over. Joining the super placement race, the graduating batch of MBA (international business) of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) witnessed a record high annual domestic salary and international salary of Rs 16 lakh and $100,000, respectively.

The placements reflect an average increase of 20% from last year’s salary figures. The banking and financial services were the major recruiters, while the new emerging sectors were retail and real estate. The comparative data for the last three years show a significant increase in the salary packages.

The average this year has increased by about 20% to 9.7 lakhs as compared to Rs 8.1 lakh in 2006 and Rs 7.28 lakh per annum in 2005. The highest individual salary in 2005 was Rs 9.5 lakh per annum, which moved in 2006 to Rs 10.6 lakh per annum. This year (2007) it has touched the Rs 16-lakh mark.

“It is promising to see a substantial increase in all sectors, especially FMCG and banking. The highlight of this year’s placement is that it has broken all previous records,” says Munish Bharagava, corporate and placement advisor, IIFT.

The placement day started with less than the full strength as 20% of the batch had already received pre-placement offers well before the placement week started. The recruiters included companies from sectors such as FMCG, banking, consulting, IT, pharmaceutical, trading and logistics.

Leaders like Lehman Brothers, Standard Chartered Bank, Citibank, SAB Miller, UTI, Bharti, DTZ, Olam International, Backes & Strauss, Colgate-Palmolive, ITC, Nestle, Dabur, ICICI, SBI, Infosys, Accenture, IBM, AWB, CSC, Cognizant, Yes Bank and HCL were the prominent recruiters.

In all, there were 80 companies present to recruit around 115 candidates and 60% of the recruiters participating were new to the IIFT placement process. IIFT is a leading research-driven management institution of India, established by the ministry of commerce & industry, government of India in 1963, with a strong international business orientation.

*******************************************************************************