JIMBO – THE INTERNET ENTREPRENEUR

 

 

ABOUT JIMBO:

Jimmy Donal “Jimbo” Wales was born August 7, 1966, is an American Internet entrepreneur and a co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia.

Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama in the United States. He attended Randolph School, a university-preparatory school, then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities, but left before completing a Ph.D. in order to take a job in finance and later worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm. In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, a male-oriented web portal featuring entertainment and adult content. The company would provide the initial funding for the peer-reviewed free encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and its successor, Wikipedia.

In 2001, together with Larry Sanger and others, Wales helped launch Wikipedia, a free, open content encyclopedia that enjoyed rapid growth and popularity, and as Wikipedia’s public profile grew, he became the project’s promoter and spokesman. He is historically cited as a co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the “co-” designation, declaring himself the sole founder. Wales serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization he helped establish to operate Wikipedia, holding its board-appointed “community founder” seat. In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a for-profit wiki-hosting service.

Wales has been married twice and has a daughter with his second wife Christine, from whom he is separated. He describes himself as an Objectivist and, with reservations, a libertarian. His role in creating Wikipedia, which has become the world’s largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world’s most influential people.

SALARY:

Jimmy Wales’ biography on Wikipedia claims that he is independently wealthy. According to Wikipedia, Wales made enough money while working in the finance industry in Chicago to support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives. An article in Wired is cited. However on the talk page, Wales claims that his net worth is considerably less: “I do not have millions of dollars. I do not even have one million dollars.”

It is likely that Wales makes his living from Wikipedia. He is not paid directly by the Wikimedia Foundation, and he claims that he is not reimbursed for expenses while conducting Wikipedia business, even when traveling to board meetings. The way Mr. Wales makes a living is by getting $50,000 to $70,000 per speaking engagement when he goes and lectures about Wikipedia.

He also uses these speaking opportunities to publicize a side project, Wikia, which is for-profit. Wikipedia also deviates from its usual low tolerance for spam, allowing thousands of links to Wikia and not giving them the usual “no follow” treatment, thus elevating Wikia’s search engine rankings. This “interwiki” treatment is not always available to other websites.

The recent announcement of a partnership with Orange, a European telecommunications company, shows that Wales has a renewed interest in monetizing the content on Wikipedia.

JIMBO’s VISION:

Jimbo Wales wants Wikipedia to be open for everyone. He does not like to ban anyone, and indeed refused to ban anyone at all initially and did not allow admins to have the ability to ban. Jimbo is also keen on privacy, to the extent that admins cannot even see IP addresses, and to see something as commonplace as an IP address requires special magical CheckUser abilities that only a select few have.

Sadly, such rules end up being abused and making it less private than ever and more able to be abused with power tripping and corruption than a more open system. Jimbo’s vision is to create a serious encyclopaedia. He doesn’t particularly like it when people make fun of it, or treat it as anything less than super serious.

OTHERS:

In May 2010, Jimbo attempted to delete some of the pornography from Wikimedia Commons. He was condemned by a majority of Wikimedians and pressured to remove some administrative tools from his “founder” software status. Wikipedia was started by Bomis, an internet company that offered adult content. Bomis was founded by Jimmy Wales and Tim Shell. Bomis funded Wikipedia in the early days before Wikipedia began accepting donations.

Jimmy Wales claims to have no connection with Wikileaks (wikileaks.org). However his company, Wikia, owns the domain names wikileaks.com, wikileaks.net, and wikileaks.us. All three of these sites publish content from Wikileaks. (Note: the www format must be used: e.g. www.wikileaks.com).

HONORS, AWARDS & POSITIONS:

• 1) Wales received the Quadriga award on October 3, 2008
• 2) Mid-2005 — Wales was appointed as a member of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School.
• 3) October 3, 2005 — Wales joined the Board of Directors of Socialtext, a provider of wiki technology to businesses.
• 4) 2006 — Wales joined the Board of Directors of the non-profit organization Creative Commons.
• 5) May 8, 2006 — Wales was listed in the “Scientists & Thinkers” section of the 100 influential people special edition of Time magazine.
• 6) June 3, 2006 — Wales received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Knox College.
• 7) May 3, 2006 — The Electronic Frontier Foundation awarded him a Pioneer Award.
• 8) 2006 — Wales was appointed to the advisory board of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.
• 9) January 23, 2007 — Forbes magazine ranked Wales twelfth in its first annual “The Web Celebs 25”.
• 10) 2007 — Wales was recognized by the World Economic Forum as one of the ‘Young Global Leaders’ of 2007.
• 11) May 2008 — Wales co-chaired the World Economic Forum on the Middle East 2008 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
• 12) 2008 — CORUM awarded him The Global Brand Icon of the Year Award for 2008.
• 13) 2008 — Wales accepted on behalf of the Wikimedia project the Quadriga award of Werkstatt Deutschland for A Mission of Enlightenment.
• 14) October 30, 2008 — Wales was awarded the Business Process Award at the 7th Annual Innovation Awards and Summit by The 15) Economist “for public collaboration as a form of product and content development.”
• 16) November 4, 2009 — Wales was recognized with the Nokia Foundation annual award (2009) “for his contributions to the evolution of the World Wide Web as a participatory and truly democratic platform”.
• 17) November 2009 — Wales was awarded the Monaco Media Prize for enabling collaborative knowledge-seeking.
• 18) December 7, 2009 — Wales announced that he will be joining the New York City-based Hunch.com as Board Member and advisor.
• 19) April 8, 2010 — Wales was honored as a Stuart Regen Visionary at New Museum in New York City.
• 20) May 21, 2010 — Wales received an honorary degree of doctor of laws from Stevenson University. Wales said that this was the very first college commencement speech that he had delivered.
• 21) May 23, 2010 — Wales received an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters from Amherst College.
• 22) January 26, 2011 — Wales was slated to be awarded on the foregoing date the Gottlieb Duttweiler Prize according to an announcement made on October 8, 2010.

AS AN AUTHOR:

• 1) Brooks, Robert; Jon Corson, Jimmy Donal Wales (1994). “The Pricing of Index Options When the Underlying Assets All Follow a Lognormal Diffusion”. Advances in Futures and Options Research 7.
• 2) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (December 31, 2008), “Foreword”, in Fraser, Matthew; Dutta, Soumitra, Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom: How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World (1st ed.), Wiley, ISBN 0470740140, OCLC 233939846.
• 3) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (January 8, 2009). “Commentary: Create a tech-friendly U.S. government”. CNN.com.
• 4) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (February 10, 2009), “Foreword”, in Powell, Juliette, 33 Million People in the Room: How to Create, Influence, and Run a Successful Business with Social Networking (1st ed.), Financial Times Press, ISBN 0137154356, OCLC 244066502.
• 5) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (March 3, 2009), “Foreword”, in Weber, Larry, Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business (2nd ed.), Wiley, ISBN 0470410973, OCLC 244060887.
• 6) Wales, Jimmy (March 17, 2009), Lih, Andrew, ed., The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia (1st ed.), Hyperion, ISBN 1401303714, OCLC 232977686.
• 7) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (March 30, 2009). “Most Define User-Generated Content Too Narrowly”. Advertising Age 80.
• 8) Wales, Jimmy; Andrea Weckerle (December 28, 2009). “Keep a Civil Cybertongue”. The Wall Street Journal (Dow Jones & Company).

Checkout the ASCII Art and Pictures of Jimbo in the below link. Extract the Files from WinRAR Archive. Please use Lucida Console font to view the ascii art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/file/G0tkqK-5/Jimmy_Wales.html

JARON LANIER – THE TECH GEEK

Jaron Zepel Lanier, born on May 3, 1960. He is a computer scientist, composer, visual artist, and author.

IN THE SCIENCES

Jaron Lanier scientific interests include biometric information architectures, user interfaces, heterogeneous scientific simulations, advanced information systems for medicine, and computational approaches to the fundamentals of physics. He collaborates with a wide range of scientists in fields related to these interests. Lanier’s name is also often associated with Virtual Reality research. He either coined or popularized the term ‘Virtual Reality’ and in the early 1980s founded VPL Research, the first company to sell VR products. In the late 1980s he led the team that developed the first implementations of multi-person virtual worlds using head mounted displays, for both local and wide area networks, as well as the first “avatars”, or representations of users within such systems. While at VPL, he and his colleagues developed the first implementations of virtual reality applications in surgical simulation, vehicle interior prototyping, virtual sets for television production, and assorted other areas. He led the team that developed the first widely used software platform architecture for immersive virtual reality applications. Sun Microsystems acquired VPL’s seminal portfolio of patents related to Virtual Reality and networked 3D graphics in 1999.

From 1997 to 2001, Lanier was the Chief Scientist of Advanced Network and Services, which contained the Engineering Office of Internet2, and served as the Lead Scientist of the National Tele-immersion Initiative, a coalition of research universities studying advanced applications for Internet2. The Initiative demonstrated the first prototypes of tele-immersion in 2000 after a three-year development period. From 2001 to 2004 he was Visiting Scientist at Silicon Graphics Inc., where he developed solutions to core problems in telepresence and tele-immersion. He was Scholar at Large for Microsoft from 2006 to 2009, and Partner Architect there from 2009 forward. Lanier received an honorary doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006, was the recipient of CMU’s Watson award in 2001, was a finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005, and received a Lifetime Career Award from the IEEE in 2009 for contributions to Virtual Reality.

AS AN AUTHOR

Lanier is a well-known author and speaker. His book “You are not a gadget” will be released in early 2010 by Knopf in the USA and Penguin in the UK. “Jaron’s World” is his monthly column in Discover Magazine, currently on hiatus, and devoted to his own wide ranging ideas and research. He writes and speaks on numerous topics, including high-technology business, the social impact of technological practices, the philosophy of consciousness and information, Internet politics, and the future of humanism. His lecture client list has included most of the well-known high technology firms as well as many others in the energy, automotive, and financial services industries. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Discover, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harpers Magazine, The Sciences, Wired Magazine (where he was a founding contributing editor), and Scientific American. He has edited special “future” issues of SPIN and Civilization magazines. He is one of the 100 “remarkable people” of the Global Business Network.

IN MUSICAs a musician, Lanier has been active in the world of new “classical” music since the late seventies. He is a pianist and a specialist in unusual musical instruments, especially the wind and string instruments of Asia. He maintains one of the largest and most varied collections of actively played rare instruments in the world. Lanier has performed with artists as diverse as Philip Glass, Ornette Coleman, George Clinton, Sean Lennon, Vernon Reid, Terry Riley, Duncan Sheik, Pauline Oliveros, and Stanley Jordan. Lanier co-composed the soundtrack to “The Third Wave,” a documentary released in Sept. 2009 to critical acclaim after winning awards at film festivals around the world. Lanier’s work with acoustic “world” instruments can be heard on many other soundtracks as well, including a prominent role in “Three Seasons” (1999), which was the first film ever to win both the Audience and Grand Jury awards at the Sundance Film Festival.

He also writes chamber and orchestral music. Current commissions include a symphony for the Bach Festival Orchestra. Recent commissions include: “Earthquake!”, a ballet which premiered at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco in April, 2006; “Little Shimmers” for the TroMetrik ensemble, which premiered at ODC in San Francisco in April, 2006; “Daredevil” for the ArrayMusic chamber ensemble, which was premiered in Toronto in 2006; A concert length sequence of works for orchestra and virtual worlds (including “Canons for Wroclaw”, “Khaenoncerto”, “The Egg”, and others) celebrating the 1000th birthday of the city of Wroclaw, Poland, premiered in 2000; A triple concerto, “The Navigator Tree”, commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts and the American Composers Forum, premiered in 2000; and “Mirror/Storm”, a symphony commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and premiered in 1998. “Continental Harmony”, a PBS special that documented the development and premiere of “The Navigator Tree” won a CINE Golden Eagle Award. His CD “Instruments of Change” was released on Point/Polygram in 1994.

IN VISUAL ART

Lanier’s paintings and drawings have been exhibited in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe. In 2002 he co-created (with Philippe Parreno) an exhibit illustrating how aliens might perceive humans for the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. In 1994 he directed the film “Muzork” under a commission from ARTE Television. His 1983 “Moondust” (which he programmed in 6502 assembly) is generally regarded as the first art video game, and the first interactive music publication. He has presented installations in New York City, including the “Video Feedback Waterbed” and the “Time-accelerated Painting”, which was situated in the Brooklyn Bridge Anchorage. His first one man show took place in 1997 at the Danish Museum for Modern Art in Roskilde. He helped make up the gadgets and scenarios for the 2002 science fiction movie Minority Report by Steven Spielberg.CELEBRITY FLUFF

In 2005 Lanier was selected as one of the top one hundred public intellectuals in the world by readers of Prospect and Foreign Policy magazines. The Encyclopaedia Britannica (but certainly not the Wikipedia) includes him in its list of history’s 300 or so greatest inventors. The nation of Palau has issued a postage stamp in his honor. Various television documentaries have been produced about him, such as “Dreadlocks and Digital Dreamworlds” by Tech TV in 2002. The 1992 movie Lawnmower Man was in part based on him and his early laboratory- he was played by Piers Brosnan. He has appeared on national television many times, on shows such as “The News Hour,” “Nightline,” and “Charlie Rose,” and has been profiled multiple times on the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

AWARDS

• Carnegie Mellon University’s Watson award in 2001
• Finalist for the first Edge of Computation Award in 2005
• Honorary doctorate from New Jersey Institute of Technology in 2006
• IEEE Virtual Reality Career Award in 2009
• Named one of TIME’s 100 most influential people in 2010 (nominated by Microsoft VP Dan Reed)

WORKS

WESTERN CLASSICAL MUSIC

• Instruments of Change (1994),[22] POINT Music/Philips/PolyGram Records
  

VIDEO GAMES

• Moondust (C64, 1983)
• Alien Garden (Atari 800, 1982)

SIGNIFICANT PAPERS

• “One Half of a Manifesto”, Edge, 11.11.00
• “Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism”, Edge, 5.30.06
• “Beware the Online Collective”, Edge, 12.25.06

BOOKS

• You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto, New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2010, ISBN 978-1846143410

SPEECHES

• ‘Finding Humanity in the Interface: Capacity Atrophy or Augmentation?’ A debate between Jaron Lanier and Will Wright from the Accelerating Change 2004 conference.
• Video of Jaron Lanier speaking at a Film Festival
• Video of Jaron Lanier’s “McLuhan Ramp” Lecture
• Video of Jaron Lanier with Neal Stephenson, Neil Gershenfeld, Raymond Laflamme, and Tara Hunt, on The Agenda with Steve Paikin at the Quantum to Cosmos festival
• Video of panel discussion with Jaron Lanier, Neal Stephenson and Lee Smolin, “Seeing Science Through Fiction” at the Quantum to Cosmos festival
• Podcast of Science in the Pub panel discussion with Jaron Lanier, Hod Lipson, Wilson da Silva and Eliezer Yudkowsky: “So We’re All Gonna be Robots, Now?”
• Video of Jaron Lanier giving a talk titled: ‘Staying Human in a Tech-Driven World’ at Zócalo public square, on January 28, 2010

INTERVIEWS

• Interview with Jaron Lanier on Music
• Coding from Scratch: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier, Part 1
• The Future of Virtual Reality: A Conversation with Jaron Lanier, Part 2
• Brown, David Jay; Novick, Rebecca McClen (1995). Voices from the edge: Conversations with Jerry Garcia, Ram Dass, Annie Sprinkle, Matthew Fox, Jaron Lanier, & others. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press. ISBN 0-89594-732-3
• Interview by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Counterpoint program; Lanier strongly criticises both Wikipedia and singularitarianism
• A Conversation with Jaron Lanier

Checkout the ASCII Art and Pictures of Jaron Lanier in the below link. Extract the Files from WinRAR Archive. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/file/d-4oDaac/Jaron_Zepel_Lanier.html

PADMA LAKSHMI – LADY RUSHDIE

Padma Parvati Lakshmi, Lady Rushdie (born September 1, 1970 in Chennai, India) is an Indian-American cookbook author, actress, and model who has described herself as the first well-known model from India. She has been the host of the reality television program Top Chef since season two and is an ambassador for the United Nations Development Fund for Women.

She was born into a Tamil Brahmin family in 1970 and raised in Madras, India and the United States. Her first name means “lotus” in Sanskrit, as well as “pearl” or “jewel.” Parvati is a consort of Shiva. Lakshmi is the name of the Hindu goddess of wealth. She attended the Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA and was studying in Spain when she was discovered. Magazines like Vogue, Elle and Glamour had her in their pages and she soon became a famous fashion model. Her career started and since then she modeled for names like Emmanuel Ungaro, Ralph Lauren, Alberta Ferretti and Roberto Cavalli.

Padma Lakshmi made a 2002 guest appearance as alien princess Kaitaama in Precious Cargo, the 37th episode of the popular science fiction TV series Star Trek: Enterprise. She was also hostess of Domenica In, Italy’s top-rated television show. She portrayed Sean Bean’s nemesis in the 2004 -2005 iTV TV series Sharpe’s Challenge. On April 17, 2004 she got married to Salman Rushdie, a novelist. In 2006 Lakshmi appeared in ABC’s TV series The Ten Commandments with Dougray Scott, Naveen Andrews, and Omar Sharif. Padma took over as hostess of the popular TV cooking competition series Top Chef in 2006 during its second season and continues in 2007 in its third season.

Her first cookbook Easy Exotic was awarded Best First Book at the 1999 World Cookbook Awards at Versailles. She was host of the Food Network series, Padma’s Passport, which is part of the larger series Melting Pot. She has also been a guest host on parts of the British culinary tourism show Planet Food, hosting the segments on India and Spain. Her second cookbook Tangy, Tart, Hot and Sweet was released October 2, 2007. The Food Network series, ‘Padma’s Passport’ and ‘Domenica In’ is hosted by her. Some of the movies in which she was seen are “Star Trek: Enterprise”, “Glitter”, “Boom”. She has a film production company and a cinematic partnership with her husband.

FILMOGRAPHY

• Top Chef (1 episode, 2006)
• Sharpe’s Challenge (2006) (TV)
• The Ten Commandments (2006) (TV)
• The Mistress of Spices (2005)
• Boom (2003/I)
• Enterprise (1 episode, 2002)
• Glitter (2001)
• Melting Pot (2001) TV Series
• Caraibi (1999) (mini) TV Series
• Figlio di Sandokan, Il (1998) (mini) TV Series
• Linda e il brigadiere (1 episode)

SELF FILMOGRAPHY

• Last Call with Carson Daly (1 episode, 2007)
• Jimmy Kimmel Live (1 episode, 2007)
• Top Chef (1 episode, 2006)
• The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (1 episode, 2006)
• The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn (1 episode, 2001)
• Unzipped (1995) (uncredited)

Checkout the ASCII Art and Wallpapers of Padma Lakshmi in the below link. Extract the Files from WinRAR Archive. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/file/-ihNLfgu/Padma_Lakshmi.html

HAN HAN – CHINA’S MOST WIDELY READ BLOGGER

Han Han born 23 September 1982 is a Chinese professional rally driver, best-selling author, singer, and China’s most popular blogger indeed, possibly the most popular blogger in the world. He is also involved in music production.

Han’s first essay, Unhappy Days, was published when he was attending junior middle school. He was admitted to Shanghai’s Song Jiang No. 2 High School based on his sporting achievements. During his first year of high school (1999), Han won first prize in China’s New Concept Writing Competition with his essay, Seeing Ourselves in a Cup, on the Chinese national character. Failing seven subjects at the year-end examination, Han was retained for a year in school. This incident was reported in the media and ignited a heated debate on China’s “quality education” policy, whether holistic or specialised learning should be implemented in schools, and other educational issues. Following another seven subject failure in the senior middle school second year examinations, Han quit school.After dropping out of school, Han worked on a series of essays – One Degree Below Freezing, Press Release 2003, And I Drift, and Miscellaneous Essays. His essays were accepted into various publications. Han’s first novel, Triple Door, on life as a third-year junior school student in Shanghai, raised his prominence in China outside Shanghai. With over two million copies printed, this novel is China’s bestselling literary work in the last 20 years. Other novels – Like a Speeding Youth, Riot in Chang’an City, A Fortress, Glory Days, His Kingdom were also published during this time.Fueled by his love of racing, Han became a professional rally driver and wrote less frequently. However, he continued to blog on current affairs, with some articles attracting a large number of readers and sparking intense debates. Han’s blog has registered well over 300 million hits, the largest online following of a personal blog in China. Han is also involved in music production. His debut album, R-18 restricted to 18 and above, was released in September 2006, with all lyrics self-composed.

On 19 April 2009, Han launched his online bookstore, Han Han’s Bookstore, on the Taobao online shopping marketplace. The bookstore site stated that it would sell only Han’s original autographed books. As the number of sales transactions on Han Han’s Bookstore was unusually large, the online system erroneously classified these as false transactions and attempts at credit fraud, leading Taobao to investigate the issue.

Due to certain publishing and circulation restrictions in China, Han’s magazine, which was originally planned for publication in August 2009, remained unpublished as of 20 September 2009. Despite this, Han promised not to disappoint his readers and expressed hope that the magazine could be published sometime around October 2009. As of February 2010 the magazine has not been published reportedly because of an article that details the blacklisting of actors.

After Han turned professional as a rally driver, there were rumours that he had encountered financial difficulties. Han himself admitted that writers and race car drivers in China earned less compared to those in other professions. Furthermore, his only income source was from book royalties as he was not involved in other revenue generating activities. However, he continued to race as it gave him a sense of achievement. Winning prizes also enabled him to prove to himself that he was an all-rounded learner.

The following highlights some of Han’s achievements in his racing career:

• 2003: Raced for Beijing Extreme Speed Racing Team in the China Rally. Achieved 6th in the Shanghai race, 8th in the Changchun race and 6th in the Beijing race, all in the Group N category.
• 2004: Group N 7th position for the Shanghai race, 4th position for the all-China race. 2004 June: Joined Yunnan Red River Racing Team.
• 2004: Took 1st position in the Formula BMW Asia Qualifying Race. Received scholarship money of USD 50,000.
• Entered the annual Formula BMW race, achieved 7th in the Bahrain race and 1st in the Rookie Cup.
• 8th in the Malaysia Race, 2nd in the Rookie Cup.
• 7th in the Shanghai race, 2nd in the Rookie Cup.
• 6th in the Japan race, 1st in the Rookie Cup.
• 2005: Joined Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team.
• 2005: Participated in the China Rally 1.6L Category. Achieved 4th in the Shanghai race, 4th in the Guizhou race, 4th in the Liupanshui race, and 4th in the Kunming race.
• 2005: Participated in the China Circuit Championship Production Car 1600cc Category. Took 1st position in the Zhuhai race, 2nd position in the Shanghai race, 3rd position in the Beijing race and 1st position in the Shaoguan race. Won overall 2nd prize for 2005.
• 2006: Raced for Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team. Won 3rd prize in the Shanghai race of the China Circuit Championship 1600cc Category, and 2nd prize in the China Rally.
• 2007: Raced for Shanghai Volkswagen 333 Racing Team, obtained 1st prize in the China Circuit Championship 1600cc Category.

In September 2009, Han travelled to Australia to participate in the World Rally Championship (WRC). Following this, he wrote a blog post entitled Report on supervision and guidance work in preparation for the WRC in Australia, using irony to express dissatisfaction with China’s standards of race management, economic conditions, political consciousness of the population, etc. in comparison with Australia.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Han Han in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

http://www.4shared.com/document/P8L7sFZV/Han_Han.html

BARACK OBAMA – FIRST AFRO PRESIDENT OF AMERICA

Barack Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on August 4, 1961 to a Kenyan father and an American mother. Obama’s parents, Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham met while studying at the University of Hawaii. Obama spent his early years in Honolulu before moving to Indonesia at the age of six. Obama’s parents separated when he was two years old. His mother later married Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian. The family moved to Jakarta in 1967.

After staying for four years in Indonesia, Obama returned to Honolulu to study at the Punahou school. He studied at the Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years before moving to the Columbia University in New York City. Obama graduated from the Columbia University in 1983 with a major in Political Science and a specialization in International Relations.

After his graduation, Obama worked at the Business International Corporation and the New York Public Interest Research Group. In 1985, he moved to Chicago to work as a community organizer. Later, in 1988, Obama joined the Harvard Law School. He went on to become the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He graduated from the law school in 1991.

Barack Obama met Michelle Robinson in 1989, whom he married in 1992. Michelle and Barack have two daughters. Obama played several roles professionally between 1993 and 2004. He worked as a lawyer for the law firm, David, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. He also worked as a part-time lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School from 1993 to 2004; he taught constitutional law at the law school. Obama also served as a board member at the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic organization.

In 1996, Obama was elected to the Illinois senate. He was elected again in 1998 and 2002. In 2000, he lost a primary for the United States House of Representatives. In 2003, Obama was appointed the chairman of the Illinois Senate’s Health and Human Services Committee. Obama became a United States Senator in late 2004 to become the fifth Afro-American Senator in history. He secured 70% votes.

In 1991, while being in-charge of a voter registration drive in Chicago, Obama began writing a book of memoirs that was later published in 1995 as Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Obama wrote another book later that was published in 2006. The book, The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream went on to become a part of the New York Times Best Seller list.

Once elected into the state Senate of Illinois, Obama took deep interest in reforms and policies, making and changing some consequently. He initiated the requirement of mandatorily videotaping interrogations in cases of homicide. He enthusiastically participated in creating the Earned Income Tax Credit program for state, meant for helping people in the low-income groups. He went on to initiate reforms in the fields of healthcare and childcare. An interesting law that came into being because of him was the law to monitor racial profiling. It became mandatory to note the race of the drivers that are detained by the state police.

Following his election into the United States Senate, Obama showed extreme interest in immigration reforms and border security improvements. He became a co-sponsor of the Secure America and Orderly Immigration Act; the act was introduced by John McCain, his Republican rival who ran for the United States Presidential post. A year later, Obama also favored another security bill that later became the Secure Fence Act.

Obama, in association with Tom Coburn, brought the Coburn-Obama Transparency Act into being; the act made the government expenditure transparent via a website called the USAspending.gov. Also, in association with the Republican, Richard Lugar, a Lugar-Obama program went on to make additions to the existing Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction concept. In 2007, Obama, in association with Senator Russ Feingold, brought into being the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. He later introduced the Iraq War De-Escalation Act of 2007. Last year in February, he declared that he will be running for the post of the President of the United States. He has showed his dislike to negative campaigning. Obama has been advocating an end to the war in Iraq, a universal health care mechanism and increased energy independence as his most important agendas in his manifesto.

Obama has surprised his critics by raising enormous amount of money through his campaigns. In January this year, his campaign raised 36.8 million US dollars, the highest amount raised ever in the Democratic primaries. In the first six months of his campaign last year, 58 million US dollars were raised, breaking earlier records. Following a series of hate mail sent to Obama, the US Secret Service instated special protection for Obama. “Fired up! Ready to go!” is a cry doing the rounds at Obama’s campaigns. Barack Obama has been voted as 44th president of the USA. He won the election battle against John McCain. He is the first afro-american president. Obama has been dubbed as the most liberal Senator in his political life. In his personal life, he plays basketball and claims to be a good poker player.

During his presidential transition, President-elect Obama announced that he would retain the incumbent Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, in his Cabinet. On February 27, 2009, Obama declared that combat operations would end in Iraq within 18 months. His remarks were made to a group of Marines preparing for deployment to Afghanistan. Obama said, “Let me say this as plainly as I can: By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” The drawdown is scheduled to be completed by August 2010, decreasing troops levels from 142,000 while leaving a transitional force of 35,000 to 50,000 in Iraq until the end of 2011. The plan is to transition the mission of the remaining troops from combat operations to counter-terrorism and the training, equipping, and advising of Iraqi security forces.

The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to U.S. President Barack Obama “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.” The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced the award on October 9, 2009, citing Obama’s promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and a “new climate” in international relations fostered by Obama, especially in reaching out to the Muslim world. Obama is the fourth U.S. President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, after Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and Woodrow Wilson (1919)—both of whom received the award during their terms—and Jimmy Carter (2002), who received the award 21 years after leaving office.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Barack Obama in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

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AMARTYA SEN – THE INDIAN ECONOMIST

Amartya Kumar Sen, born on 3rd November 1933, is an Indian economist who was awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics and social choice theory and for his interest in the problems of society’s poorest members. Sen was best known for his work on the causes of famine, which led to the development of practical solutions for preventing or limiting the effects of real or perceived shortages of food.Sen was educated at Presidency College in Calcutta (now Kolkata). He went on to study at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he received a B.A. (1955), an M.A. (1959), and a Ph.D. (1959). He taught economics at a number of universities in India and England, including the Universities of Jadavpur (1956–58) and Delhi (1963–71), the London School of Economics, the University of London (1971–77), and the University of Oxford (1977–88), before moving to Harvard University (1988–98), where he was professor of economics and philosophy. In 1998 he was appointed master of Trinity College, Cambridge—a position he held until 2004, when he returned to Harvard as Lamont University Professor.

Welfare economics seeks to evaluate economic policies in terms of their effects on the well-being of the community. Sen, who devoted his career to such issues, was called the “conscience of his profession.” His influential monograph Collective Choice and Social Welfare (1970)—which addressed problems such as individual rights, majority rule, and the availability of information about individual conditions—inspired researchers to turn their attention to issues of basic welfare. Sen devised methods of measuring poverty that yielded useful information for improving economic conditions for the poor. For instance, his theoretical work on inequality provided an explanation for why there are fewer women than men in some poor countries in spite of the fact that more women than men are born and infant mortality is higher among males. Sen claimed that this skewed ratio results from the better health treatment and childhood opportunities afforded boys in those countries.

Sen’s interest in famine stemmed from personal experience. As a nine-year-old boy, he witnessed the Bengal famine of 1943, in which three million people perished. This staggering loss of life was unnecessary, Sen later concluded. He believed that there was an adequate food supply in India at the time but that its distribution was hindered because particular groups of people in this case rural laborers lost their jobs and therefore their ability to purchase the
food. In his book Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation (1981), Sen revealed that in many cases of famine, food supplies were not significantly reduced. Instead, a number of social and economic factors such as declining wages, unemployment, rising food prices, and poor food-distribution systems led to starvation among certain groups in society.

Sen’s first wife was Nabaneeta Dev Sen, an Indian writer and scholar, with whom he had two children: Antara, a journalist and publisher, and Nandana, a Bollywood actress. Their marriage broke up shortly after they moved to London in 1971. In 1973, he married his second wife, Eva Colorni, who died from stomach cancer quite suddenly in 1985. They had two children, Indrani, a journalist in New York, and Kabir, who teaches music at Shady Hill School.

His present wife, Emma Georgina Rothschild, is an economic historian, an expert on Adam Smith and Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Sen usually spends his winter holidays at his home in Santiniketan in West Bengal, India, where he likes to go on long bike rides, and maintains a house in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he and Emma spend the spring and long vacations. Asked how he relaxes, he replies: “I read a lot and like arguing with people.”

HONORS & AWARDS

• He received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics for his work in welfare economics in 1998.
• In 1999 he received the Bharat Ratna ‘the highest civilian award in India’ by the President of India. In 1999 he was offered honorary citizenship of Bangladesh from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in recognition of his achievements in winning the Nobel Prize, and given that his family origins were in what has become the modern state of Bangladesh.
• He received the 2000 Leontief Prize for his outstanding contribution to economic theory from the Global Development and Environment Institute.
• He was the 351st Commencement Speaker of Harvard University.
• In 2002 he received the International Humanist Award from the International Humanist and Ethical Union.
• Eisenhower Medal, for Leadership and Service USA, 2000.
• Companion of Honour, UK, 2000. In 2002, he received an honorary degree from the university of Tokyo.
• In 2003, he was conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.
• Life Time Achievement award by Bangkok-based United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).
• In 2009, Sen became a member of the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation’s International Advisory Board to contribute to the organisation’s work in poverty reduction and sustainable development.
• He was chosen to deliver the Demos Annual Lecture 2010

PUBLICATIONS

• Choice of Techniques, 1960. Sen, Amartya, An Aspect of Indian Agriculture, Economic Weekly, Vol. 14, 1962.
• Collective Choice and Social Welfare, 1970, Holden-Day, 1984, Elsevier. Sen, Amartya, On Economic Inequality, New York, Norton, 1973. (Expanded edition with a substantial annexe by James E. Foster and A. Sen, 1997).
• On Economic Inequality, 1973.
• Poverty and Famines: an Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation, 1981a.
• Sen, Amartya, Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlements and Deprivation, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982.
• Sen, Amartya, Food Economics and Entitlements, Helsinki, Wider Working Paper 1, 1986.
• Sen, Amartya, On Ethics and Economics, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1987.
• Drèze, Jean and Sen, Amartya, Hunger and Public Action. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1989. Hunger and Public Action, jointly edited with Jean Drèze, 1989.
• Sen, Amartya, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing”. New York Review of Books, 1990.
• Sen, Amartya, Inequality Reexamined, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Nussbaum, Martha, and Sen, Amartya. The Quality of Life. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. India: Economic Development and Social Opportunity, with Jean Drèze, 1995.
• Sen, Amartya, Reason Before Identity (The Romanes Lecture for 1998), Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Commodities and Capabilities, 1999.
• Sen, Amartya, Development as Freedom, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999.
• Development as Freedom, 1999. Reason Before Identity, 1999.
• Freedom, Rationality, and Social Choice: The Arrow Lectures and Other essays, 2000.
• Sen, Amartya, Rationality and Freedom, Harvard, Harvard Belknap Press, 2002.
• Rationality and Freedom, 2004.
• Inequality Reexamined, 2004.
• The Argumentative Indian, 2005.
• Sen, Amartya, The Argumentative Indian, London: Allen Lane, 2005.
• Sen, Amartya, The Three R’s of Reform, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 40(19): pp. 1971-1974, 2005.
• Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Issues of Our Time), New York, W. W. Norton, 2006.
• Imperial Illusions: India, Britain, and the wrong lessons. By Amartya Sen.
• Response by Niall Ferguson. Equality of Capacity by Amartya Sen.
• The Idea of Justice Harvard University Press & London: Allen Lane,2009.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Amartya Sen in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

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CHETAN BHAGAT – THE MODERN INDIAN AUTHOR

Chetan Bhagat was born on April 22, 1974 in New Delhi. He is an Indian author who has written Five Point Someone – What not to do at IIT , One Night @ the Call Center, The Three Mistakes of My Life and 2 States – The Story Of My Marriage. He has also written the script of Hello, the Hindi movie based on One Night @ the Call Center. He is married to Anusha, who was his classmate in IIM.Along with Advaita Kala and Karan Bajaj, Chetan Bhagat is considered among the trio of modern Indian writers that have rewritten Indian publishing rules and brought a new scale to the Indian publishing landscape with previously unheard of book sales.

Bhagat attended Army Public School from the year 1978 to 1991, Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi. He studied Mechanical Engineering at the Indian Institute Of Technology (IIT), (1991-1995) Delhi, and then studied at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIM) (1995-1997) where he was named “The Best Outgoing Student”.

He fell in love with his IIM Ahmedabad classmate Anusha and they eventually got married.[1] A fictionalized version of his love story is given in his book 2 states – The story of my marriage.

Bhagat’s writing style tends to be simple, with linear narratives and vivid storytelling. His protagonists tend to be named after Lord Krishna, like Hari, Shyam, Govind or Krishna. All his books have a number in the title (e.g. ‘five’ in the first, ‘one’ in the second, ‘three’ in the third and ‘two’ in his latest book.) When asked about this Chetan replied “I’m a banker, I can’t get numbers out of my head.” He is a columnist with Dainik Bhaskar & The Times Of India, and writes on political issues.

ON TELEVISION

Chetan Bhagat is a judge on a soon to be hosted Reality show by Star News called Star Anchor Hunt.

AWARDS

• Society Young Achiever’s award in 2004.
• Publisher’s recognition award in 2005.

Checkout the ASCII Art of Chetan Bhagat in the below link. Please use Lucida Console font to view the art in Notepad. Before that in Notepad go to Format and Uncheck the Word Warp and then Go to Font and Reduce the Font Size to 3 to 4 pt. Use only Lucida Console Font.

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