True Peace in the World for Small Business Owners - Part 1

Suppose Qin Shi Huang, the first Chinese Emperor who built the Great Wall, and Hitler were alive and running fast food restaurant chains and were after your small fast food joint, I'd still ask you to relax.

True they had far better eyes and ears and spies.

True they had far better brains and advisers.

That's exactly there where the fun begins for you and me.

Qin Shi Huang knew every road and driver in his land, he knew very boat and boatman in his empire. He knew all about medicines, diseases, weather, and seasons. Still he'd go to the South China Sea and died.

Mr Hitler knew even Tibet and Myanmar. So he definitely also knew about Russia, her weather, her roads, rail lines and Russian tank production figures. Still he'd go to Russia in winter and fell.

They could not trust their own eyes and ears and spies and their own brains and advisers.There, the fun began in history and the fun begins for you and me at any point in history. They even used their hands in very similar ways, funny!
 

Mao Zedong's Guerilla Warfare, So What?

on March 16,2010

Afghanistan in 16 characters,a news article, states:

By May 1928 the basic principles of guerrilla warfare ... had already been evolved; that is, the 16-character formula: The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue." Mao Tse-tung, 1936

I've been studying Mao Zedong for years for fun. I didn't think much of this formula at first. Only now, after reading this article a few days ago, I suspect that many people may be still awed by this stuff.

There's no reason for such an over-respectfulness. We can find a way out of this mantra rather easily. Let's reformat the mantra to see its constituent parts more clearly.

The enemy advances ----- we retreat;
the enemy camps ----- we harass;
the enemy tires ----- we attack;
the enemy retreats ----- we pursue

This shows the yin/yang or what he fondly calls Dialetics clearly.
There are 4 ways out of this rhyme:
(1) Negate the Left Hand Side
(2) Negate the Right Hand Side
(3) Affirm the Left Hand Side
(4) Affirm the Right Hand Side

I'll demonstrate my approach only for the first line of the stanza, as,
(1) Negate the Left Hand Side. => I won't advance, I'll do something else.
(2) Negate the Right Hand Side. => I won't allow them to retreat.

(3) Affirm the Left Hand Side. => I advance but in a way beneficial to my side.
(4) Affirm the Right Hand Side. => I do allow them to retreat but in a way harmful to them.

As far as I know, I am the first to solve this riddle. Perhaps Gordian knots can never survive playful strikes.

If you are over-awed or puzzled by some formulas, send them to us. We have a few bits of our brains to spare in solving some stuff for you. We will solve it if it is fun.

Whatever the search engine thinks ("it's a little-known blog," "the post is too short," "there are no keywords," etc ), this is a remarkable post. If the engine doesn't pick this up, it just shows their algorithms' quality. More of this to come later.

Competitiveness | Jose Mourinho

The two teams involved were Barcelona and Inter Milan. But the coach of Inter Milan was so famous that he overshadowed all the players and even the teams themselves. Thus, many newspapers and online commentators described the match as "Jose Mourinho vs Barcelona."

It was a battle royale between a special manager and a special team and the special manager won out 3 to 1. My curiosity was piqued to see how an individual can have that much impact on so many players. This is my analysis of what exactly happened.

Mourinho understood football/soccer as a position-and-numbers game. Barcelona and other teams take it to be a possession game. Thus, they are playing different games in fact. Most other teams want to feel like over-capitalized startups: the more money, the better. The longer you keep the ball, the better. However, the truth is borrowing more than you need does never good, and similarly, just keeping the ball for the sake of keeping it does no good. Mourinho proudly said after the match: "We gave the ball away". His players let Barcelona keep the ball as much as they like.

Threats Neutralized

1. Barcelona is feared for its passing game
------ 1. Cut off their supply line to their front men.
------ 2. Stay in your positions. Let them play their passing game in harmless areas.
---------- Software designers/architects will be reminded by Barcelona of systems where objects call each other a lot but do noting else. e.g Ken Thomson in Coders at Work
---------- Business people will be reminded by Barcelona of paper-pushing company cultures.

2. Lionel Messi
------ 1. Just hold your ground. Avoid premature commitment and tackles. Let him make his moves first.
------ 2. Don't give him any chance for free kicks.

Your Own Attacks

1. Destroy their positions by pressing high. Win back the ball, the possession at the front with the intent to attack. Not merely for possession.
2. Exploit any positional mistakes.
------ 1. Barcelona's defensive weaknesses on the flanks.
------ 2. Direct balls over Barcelona's high defensive lines, to your own fast strikers.
3. Creating numerical supremacy during your own attacks.

I do recommend All The Way Jose for a nice read. You will be inspired to see how a mere translator for coaches transformed himself into an assistant coach and eventually into a world-famous manager of the world-famous football clubs.

on May 5, 2010

Myanmar, Singapore, Entrepreneurs and Einstein

on September 22, 2011

1. Myanmar has been in the news these days.
2. So has Singapore.
3. Entrepreneurs.
   According to a recent BusinessWeek report(last week, maybe), entrepreneurs in China are worried that if they do something nice and new, Tencent will just copy those innovations, and entrepreneurs in America are worried that if they do something nice and new, Google will buy them out.
4. Maybe I am worried that I am chicken and dumb and maybe I am projecting my own fearfulness and cluelessness on to Myanmar, Singapore, and entrepreneurs worldwide.

I am copying some lines from WikiQuote about Einstein.

The most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile.
This has been quoted in a relatively few places on the internet, but seems to have no earlier source than an obscure web essay "Reinventing Failure: Designing Success" by Harald Anderson, where the statement seems to have been a loose summation of Einstein's ideas rather than a quote: "Albert Einstein once commented that the most fundamental question we can ever ask ourselves is whether or not the universe we live in is friendly or hostile. He hypothesized that your answer to that question would determine your destiny.
Quoted in Morris Berman: Coming to Our Senses (1989) pp. 41


I don't know what his conclusions were and I won't bother.

Einstein is famous for his Thought Experiments. All I would ask him is to do some such experiments on this topic.

Thought Experiment 1. Einstein jump from a 2nd or 3rd floor of a building.
Result 1. The earth, part of the Universe breaks his bones or neck.
Conclusion 1. The Universe is not friendly.

Thought Experiment 2. Einstein stay on a 2nd or 3rd floor of a building.
Result 2. The earth, the sky, the wind as parts of the Universe pose no danger.
Conclusion 2. The Universe is not malevolent.

Thought Experiment 3. Another person jump from a 2nd or 3rd floor of a building.
Thought Experiment 4. Another person stay on a 2nd or 3rd floor of a building.
More or less similar results.
Conclusion 3. The Universe is neutral.
Conclusion 4. The Universe is not playing dice.

1. When we don't know the rules of something , we call it "magic", "quantum", "indeterminate", "chaos" etc.
2. When we know a bit, we call it History.
3. When we know a lot, we call it Physics. (Paraphrasing Prof Chomsky on linguistics.)

What does Physics say about Myanmar, Singapore and Entrepreneurs?
What does History say about Myanmar, Singapore and Entrepreneurs?

I am a Myanmar living in Singapore and working as an entrepreneur. I am sleeping nice and easy.

You, guys and gals also, go sleep, nice and easy.

Universe is not so friendly but principled/principle-governed.