I make that the figure for what Bill Gates has earned (and this figure is increasing) on average in the last 25 years. As Brad points out, that makes it just about feasible that he can pick up a $1000 bill he sees on the floor (if it exists) in the 4 seconds it takes to pick it up. It's not worth it if he spends another 3 seconds trousering it or placing it in his wallet. Obiously that's silly because Mr Gates does not work every second of his life! But you get the idea. His taxation bill to Uncle Sam when he dies would be a jackpot, unless he leaves it all to his wife, or to a charity (in which case its nil on tax). I believe he's choosing the latter option so good for him. But he's still a bastard LOL! Honestly, that is really scary and I'd never want to be that guy ever! A good home and enough dosh to finance my ideas and the ideas of others who are better than me, is all I want.

I have been reading more into Brad's Ideas and his writeup on internet copyright law (US biased?) makes we wonder about the effectiveness of the Creative Commons License used for weblogs. A second thing that made me chortle was trains that decouple etc. - not that it's a bad idea ... but try that with UK railways ... it would have to be well in the future!
Anyway, I finish my last exam this week! yahoo!! which is Accounting and Finance and then face a rock n' roll summer doing some exciting stuff. I forgot to mention that I have a new idea called "phone domains" which is withheld until the concept is ironed out. It might not get the chance to face criticism for a good few months, since Sulis Technologies is focused on finishing work on the big event manager. There's much to do, starting with redoing our Sulis homepage and creating task lists and plans. Brad also mentions his experienced call on how startups get off the ground, and one way of rewarding the team that works in a new company - founders stock. I'm sure this question will arise in our company once we have our first customer, so we can make the plans and lay them out beforehand, as long as the team is not going to walk off into the sunset after two months!

I'd like to thank Shiv especially for her recent email - cheers me up lots hun, and apologies to Birke and Pearl for not keeping in touch! Everyone say Don't problem to GaZZA for his last exam! And I'm looking forward to the England game today! COME ON ENGLAND!
Congrats to Ken on being re-elected mayor in London, and it looks like a Conservative win in my borough.
I'll write you or see you soon!

No updates for so long -sorry! I had my second to last exam today and it went okay, everything's gone about average so far. I'm off to London on Thursday to vote for London mayor, etc. and to try and sleep off this cold Ive got at home in bed! I finish all exams on the 17th after which I might go a bit mad!

Pinky: What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every night Pinky ... plan to take over the world! But first we have to get out of this damned cage ...

I am busy revising for exams. We had a great evening at the Creative Writing Awards - pictures here.
We also didn't win cash on the Sulis competition, but this a small setback in the grand scheme, and testament to the difficult times faced for a technology startup like ours.
Startups are a great challenge but without them the world goes nowhere and pioneers like us don't get direct responsibility, direct education and the financial rewards from our concepts.
Importantly, we probably deserved this kick for the effort put into the concept so far - which hasn't been a lot because of academic commitments. I will work on forging out our service in a realistic way. The Sulis Technologies team might share these sentiments, and it would be beneficial for each of us to put our own blood into this concept. We will get our product out sooner and begin making money - only as a team of individual talent. It's that same team diversity that has evolved our concept from a vague idea to something that looks set be a single and clear offering that is begging to go out to the market.
I have decided not to go to Columbia since it would be a waste of a year costing lots of money (even though it's a stay in New York), so I've taken up a BT graduate job offer and will start work in London at the end of September, which pays about the same incidentally as the Columbia expenses. In other news, I've joined the gym for an intensive programme of supermanification.
Music ~ I am growing to the magnificent Musicology by Prince, where the sound wants to flow from one river into another river and in between blow down waterfalls and through driftwood in soul-quenching pools. Read the distribution strategy for this album.
expecting to hear the mad and Cassadyesque Amit come out and babble again off the verandah? He'll be back no doubt, just not now. Chess anyone? Pearl emailed me about a Trooper concert in the early morning - check it out.

• Good squiggles by a German via Caterina


• Groovy cassette tapes via Caterina


• Bill Gates on blogs etc. at the Microsoft CEO Summit 2004, drawing out the future of wireless in particular _ via Anil


• The Island at the Centre of the World. The Rongorongo tablets of Easter Island that have never been deciphered _ via Anil

Please make your browser font size larger to read this whole part from Walden, of which a quote is extracted below.

We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.

Henry David Thoreau
How I lived and what I lived for
From Walden

The dissertation is finished, that fat lump of turd which cost me so much sleep and headbanging over so many months! I must mention though that it is a real gem of work. It covers every part and everything works, its actually genius and it should be seen that way :-| ! Ever since I chose my own project I knew I was in for the worst time, but this has really turned out - not simply on target but it has opened up the original vision from 9 months ago and more.
Last Friday, me and Kai from AfSoc performed Redemption Song at the university awards evening - a good picture here. It was black tie and razmatazz, and I had a good night which ended at Horny up on university.
At long last, a cashback from Carphone Warehouse came in, which was quickly banked, as I'm getting a good shave from my shares at the moment! On our company front, we make business plan love-talk for our share of £10k in front of the judges next week.
And the best news of all is this - we got the permit for the freshly sqezed ORANGE JUICE STALL! It's given for the area around McDonalds and Boots at the bottom end of city centre! I feel good woohoohohoho! Post pub crawl and Friday football, we have a course dinner to mark the bleedin' end (after pub crawl recovery!).
There is glorious light coming through the windows of Babble Towers!
YEah Love me tender, love me true, hope you know that I love you?!

Last weekend was really great weather, spent at a barbeque at Dave and Beefys. Since then I went for a job interview at BT in Apsley, which I got. Then realised that our company business plan has to be submitted by the 7th, so pressed on the gas.
On Thursday night I drive over 500 miles and 7 hours for Eric Clapton (a sober affair) with Kunal in Manchester. It began a tad late when some cowboy parking we got was yonks away from the Arena. And on he came, the legend of 4 decades, we had top tier seats. A new guy on guitar Doyle Bramhall 2 sounded like a reborn Hendrix with his awesome o so left-handed riffs. It quickly moved on to Hoochie Coochie Man which without a doubt had me on the edge of my seat to hear every crashing round of drum. Things reached their ultimate peak for me with Bell Bottom Blues, and I knew it was all worth it. Many soaring blues numbers followed up, when people idiotically went to get a beer or took kids to the loo which was rude. The evening ended to the soaring heavenly rhymes of Layla and Wonderful Tonight and finally a gaggle of people swayed like penguins to Cocaine. Slowhand will not tour again, and plays guitar like the super-legend that he is. The quality of the musicians, the Stevie Wonder smiles of Billy Preston, groovy blues of the pre-show band left a lasting impression. I will remember this guy for some time, for his dedication to the blues. Here is pics and video bites from the night.
I've also joined Orkut which everyone I know should join - send me an email since you have to be invited in. Google might've done it this time. Im in London for the long weekend to stay with dad. Bath uni people - vote for the entries to our creative writing competition! Lately I'm been reading Brad's Entrepreneurial Ideas. I made the Princess her own photo gallery - check it out!

I got offered a job from BT Exact and have to meet my line manager. I have a new Canadian housemate Laura who works at uni. My dissertation is really progressing, it's doing stuff and seems to work!! This is over the moon, because other students who tried carpooling as a multi agent system seem to have failed. But then I'm not other students. I've seen a golden opportunity to retail the wicked Apple iPod Minis. The idea is to fill up suitcases full of iPods in the US with the weak $ and shift the units with attractive markup. I mention this specially because the profit margin is incredible. In the US, they are selling so many that Apple have delayed European launch. If I had the time I would get to New York City to stock up but time is precious. My company has a mentor for our business plan so we can engage quite soon! You might remember the orange juice stall, I sent a proposal this week to Bath Council because we have to fight for our pitch with other peeps. Dinner on Monday, lectures start / breakfast now. On Thursday next week its Siobhan's birthday - happy birthday Shiv! I'm going to watch Eric Clapton at Manchester Arena on 29th April and there's one spare ticket - you know the score if you want it. Ten squidgy rolls in puddles of mud or instead the upside-down assupyerbum yoga move.

I had a great day and night with the princess in london. We went to a graffiti gallery under westminster bridge and watched a latin band with us peeps dancing at some random shopping mall. At lunch we got told off for using a flash by a copper where I consumed the fattest sandwich at a pub on the Strand. Had to have a royal gum breaking on the millenium bridge and had festivities at my dinner of ABERDEEN ANGUS lasagne! We roamed in a sea of beer around covent garden, and had a random time at a chinese restaurant near leicester square. It was decided for next time that we will do the seedy places, Tate Modern, then road it to Bath. O and Princess stole a Simpsons comic from the Hayward Gallery. We had a commemorative beer at the bar where Christy's phone was nicked. This break was well needed, now i feel like I can get going with work. I've devised a single route matching algorithm for the dissertation which isn't hardcore but I think it took new ideas to propose it. I doubt it works properly. Thats about it really, there's jack to report! The date for the Lebanese restaurant date in Bath is 19th April. Check this out - George Bush Hotmail account!

I decided to dip my toe into the crude hotornot.com. An array of ladies who clearly know their stuff have landed on my match list. And you better go to my rating and vote 10. Now!
It's not long before the Eric Clapton concert in Manchester Arena on the 29th. Kunal and I will catch one of the last chances to see a maestro whose work spans four decades. Yesterday I watched Concert for George.
Turbanhead seems to be dissing the Sicilian mafia at his peril! I've realised how much I have missed reading wood s lot. Last summer, we went grape picking in France with Gaz and co and I wrote this account on my travelogue. Now peeps think I can get them a job because of boogle. I point you to the right person.

Read this performance. The university is about to go on hols and so am I! The rest of this Easter, I'll be doing hard work on the dissertation. The great thing is that the road is laid and now I need to jog into it. I've almost finished the application to Columbia in New York (not COLOMBIA!). Columbia is also hosting the AAMAS-04 conference in July. Tomorrow I go into a kickboxing match in Bristol where I hope to either kick ass or be thoroughly kicked. My brother has his birthday on Sunday, whence I return to London to family and home food.
In other news, I've got a day's assessment centre at BT in Milton Keynes after first being rejected and later in two weeks, a couple of presentations to get a job at liftshare, where the MD Ali Clabburn has invited me to a distant kingdom of England. Things are getting busy so updates will be fewer as the heat builds ...

I met Siobhan then got Luke and Kelly to tail us with guided tour on Saturday afternoon, went straight to watch rugby and get heavy at a pub. We engaged the staff of Las Iguanas who told us to go elsewhere - at 6:15! Pah, we went to an Italian restaurant addatop of the Podium, whence we consumed more alcohol and food and got the bus to uni for African Carribbean night. And WHAT A NITE it was! No seats left. Here's some pictures of AFSOC nite 2004 - thanks Digs. More pictures have also been added to the uni photos gallery from here. Digs has also kindly supplied a beautiful snow in bath gallery. More pictures of global night now also online. Sham Castle and lots of vodka was thrown in there somewhere during the night. The acts I do remember, even though they were all great - By Your Side (which I was gonna play with Lola), the human beatboxes (rah!), El Presidente in a grey suit, the marriage play (kinda similar to our Asian nite with volume control?!), the gumboot dance. Should I have contributed on behalf of Kenya - probably. I should have sung the Swahili number Malaika, but the show had many songs. All credit to AfSoc, they's dunnit. I hope to see Luke and Kelly come back, it was GRREat to have you.
I spent today recovering from a sore head, the Aussies visited "pretty" Castle Combe (I have to go there baby, Kellys charmed) after checking out. Watched Southampton v. Portsmouth at the Litten Tree with Matt and Sunday lunch. Done no work, jack, this weekend. And proud of it.

From the fanlist mail: Bic will be playing a short live acoustic set and signing copies of the new Beautiful Collision album on Monday 22nd at the Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street in central london (nearest tube is Tottenham Court Rd) at 6pm. Make sure you get down there early!

Tomorrow at midday Shiv arrives! And Luke arrives with his cousin! And then we all go and get drunk watching rugby or football, and I want to take them to Las Iguanas for dinner. Then we may go to the African Carribean night and the aftershow. Perhaps have a gander towards Sham Castle, and end up at the Huntsman for its late tipple. I have it all planned, a day to a night. I need this whole day to stop me going insane about work.

What after all, is getting swindled on the street? Is it a crime? Crime is an art. How many countless books and films glamourise crime? To rob a bank vault after months of planning takes a certain mettle. When you rob a vault, and leave a souvenir to rub it in, it becomes a rare form of art. It takes the kind of courage and knowledge that general life doesn't exploit. After lots of TV, including "The Thomas Crown Affair", "Hustle" yesterday and "Oceans Eleven" I have been thinking of high crime being seen as acceptable, like doing legal business. What's more, in a different vein, belle de jour brings respect to a high class whore. These are PEOPLE who work in real life doing things that put food on the table. I can't do such things!

Shiv's coming this weekend! Saturday - the African Carribean night is the entertainment, Ill post pictures if I take any. Luke (from the Cinque Terre, Italy) and cousin are visiting Bath on a surprise visit, they're staying in bath backpackers hostel. So I got 3 guests this weekend. I end this post with finesse, leaving you with Allen Ginsberg's performance "America" (thanks Owen).

My condolences to the people of Spain. Catch the bastards and bring them to trial.

I wrote up the literature review part of the dissertation. 2 pictures from the open mic poetry evening at the bottom of this page. This week we also launched our competition. The company has been going great, and we think we can all pay our bills in the warm summer in a FRESHLY SQUEEZED orange juice stall in Bath. This will involve a lot of logistics, such as making the stall, buying the juicer, chaps to fetch/make oranges and ice, dumping the rubbish and wheeling the cart somewhere covered at the end of the day. Given that Bath is jam packed with tourists and we get a permit to have the stall, we can trouser some serious bucks! We plan to charge the compelling price of £1 a plastic glass. Our juice will be straight juice, with a cube of ice, not diluted. Who doesn't want fresh cool orange juice in the summer?! This is the plan of young, vibrant minds - we'd have the coolest summer taking a few days a week off from Sulis Technologies, talking to the girls of summer, and generally having a lark!! I'm going to Warwick then London today for the weekend. Bloomberg interview went okay. Made some bob unlocking phones this week. Siobhan's coming to visit next weekend!

I have been reading Pablo Neruda. Neruda was awarded the 1971 Nobel prize in literature. So here I share a piece from him that made my creative heart pump.

My mum came back from East Africa, Chandler 0.3 is released and today I bought a new digital camera. Paul's Sherlock Holmes CD's - Ive only scratched the surface - this is for those longer moments. Paul - I wish I had a solar powered CD player to take these recordings wherever I go!
Funny how there's not really much difference between Bush and Kerry - it's a case of choose the greater fool! Dear Americans, what you need is Clinton back on top form. All IMHO of course.
The week was plush. There seems to be dissertation work going on at Gaz Towers, can you send me some motivation please!? Best of luck to Shiv at Harrow Words Live on 8th March. Shiv - don't break into a frenzy of giggling! But you're a pro, you'll do great! Pearl wrote me a great piece that is distant from "her" style, and I keep re-reading it, trying to get back. I will do soon! About me now (yeh) a certain unhealthy complacency has set in which must be kicked out, which Ive noticed when I get blase about daily trades and now take university parking for granted! Tomorrow night yours sincerely will be at an open-mic poetry slam with the society, a first for us this year. We hope to know our members even better and play our part in the Bath Literature festival this week in this town. Reports on other things are mundane, but Id make a request above all, I wish it wasn't so cold all the time!
If you ever considered buying a diamond for investment, think again, I have always known that the massive 10-hardness gem market is controlled by cartels that stockpile huge amounts to keep prices constant. One day the bubble will burst like the equities bubble of 2000 when every muppet was left wiping their tears with worthless qxl share certificates. The market and true value wins (found out the hard way!). Best resource investment at the moment is platinum or a proven gas field, although you can't wear a gas field (no comments please)! Go on you dirty people, pornolize good BBB!

Things started civilised and work-based on Monday. Tuesday saw a dash to London for my GRE test at Twickenham. It was a long day and prolly the hardest test I've ever done, involving numerical, linguistic, persuasion and analytic (essay) shit. I didn't do well, but I don't feel any hurt as I'm having second thoughts of CS at Columbia. Then the next day started with piledriving through exam results getting angry, for the module where everything seemed to have gone wrong, even though it should be the best mark and it turned up 45%. I wasted the whole of yesterday, no joke. We did random walking around campus and played chess and did road trips until 4 in the morning. And being with Avtar and Digant and all made me feel the fecudity of the first year that's now lost to me. For the first time yesterday, as I drove home at 4am in the frosty morn, my eyes glittered with the first real adventure-holicness that I used to feel. So I've had like 4 hours sleep and now there's an important meeting for our funding of Sulis Technologies - in 40 minutes. 2 pictures from Global Nite became available. There's videos also which I might get online. Today I went to a pres about spending the future studying in Australia. They showed all these pictures of life there - swimming pools behind student halls, loads of space, people in tshirts and bikini's and stuff like that.
The WHOLE WORLD IS MAGIC today, as snow fell and made Bath a fairy kingdom from Aesop's fables. We had something like a snowball championship! The world, if it was ever splendid, shows its colours today in the milky twilight. I'm looking outside my window, UB40 playing, daydreaming to no end in the crispy cold. The trees are standing men, gigantic and like important statues in some bygone era; I glimpse a rare view of something from the deep yonder of time. I can't hear it, silent as midnight, the soundless dancing of snow flakes ...

CELEB ALERT! Tomorrow night I play a music set with Avtar similar to the first one we did. I think we have 15 minutes, and I bought a new capo from town since I left the other one somewhere. I also treated myself to a new set of D'Addario strings, the guitar is being pampered these dayz.
Next week Tuesday its adios to London for the day for a GRE test near Twickenham. To apply at Columbia I have to do well at this test.
This week has been awesome. I spent Wednesday night drowned in jazz then reggae at my new best pub, having lost all my society and can't remember jack! Thursday's fruitie was an interesting IM with Pearl which got me pondering on improvement in myself. Not too many details since it's still background processing in my nonscholarly brain.
With due respect to Wales, who did well for ... Wales in football, rest assured this was just a lucky strike. Like winning the lottery 4 times. Off to kickboxing now, might be in pain at wakeup time tomorrow. I need to have a poo now. Redirect to Siobhan on her messageboard or go diss the chaps on my usual shares BB.!

The music was playing and christy was talking and a little eastern european kid comes to the table, deftly nabs christy's mobile phone and prepares to leg it. We get it off the kid eventually. Sunday afternoon in Covent Garden, I was at a bar with baby and christy when these 2 cheeky beggars walk through the doors. If it weren't for the japanese chaps near us, we'd never have known. We went for a cheap chinese after that and filled my belly aplenty in chinatown. Walking past leicester square, we JUST missed the entry of everyone to the BAFTA awards, which sucked but - we were buying chinese sweets and jelly things. I vroomed my way from london to bath 95mph average and at home now, transfixed with this wok my mum's given me. You're supposed to screw the handle on, it looks like Matt has managed to work it and I look forward to cooking stir fries in the wok. Anyway its almost the new day now. Best sleep.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I would like to send love and seasonal handshakes today to the following people (typewritten without thinking with family first of course) - my mum, my dad, kunal, sister, my family, 1 yr old nephew (who's now crawling around opening drawers), siobhan, norwegian ben t, people in arts, lis, beef, matt d, paul schumann, germans, jochen, anna, brian, dave, gaz, vanessa, princess, all those californians, mexicans, new yorkers, italians, adrienne, all those fine english gentlemen, french gentlemen, vincent, dj, gemini, all the indians, mt boys and oxfordians, expeditioners, uni mates, london mates, and a hundred others I forget. But most of all, respect and sombre salutes to the the brave hearts, the romeo dreamers and those that believe in mystery. You know who you are, young and raw. Might as well give you all a plug once. You deserve it more than you know.
This is probably the most links I ever posted! Visit cuddly Stevie's antiba as well.

This month is my blog's 1st birthday - its come out of toddlerhood - so there's a new look to reflect this.

The lovely weekend. Looks like Ill be going back to London to meet Christy and BABY [Baby in shades and pink, Christy in Red]. It will diddly pleasant to see our baby again, she never fails to make me smile, and shes hardly ever here from Germany. And another pic [Baby and Princess in the middle]. In other news, cheques are getting banked, jack has had a musical rearranging, and I found out Brian lives on his own in a beautiful flat for £400 or somesuch a month. So might talk over his new business idea that he's powering thru coming week - the fruit juice business. Hope to hear from Procter and Gamble too about the interview on Thursday in Surrey. I want it, want it, want it. Its so fine, so full of lovely gorgeous w .. people. Notice how dat v word hasn't been written 'bout!