Ogori Cafe: Service With a Surprise

Cabel Saasser brings word of a mysterious cafe that he recently experienced in Kashiwa in Japan. Located inside the Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha, the Ogori cafe looks innocuous enough, but holds a surprise in store for its patrons. In a nutshell, you get what the person before you ordered, and the next person gets what you ordered. Thus, if you’re in on the game, you can choose to be either a generous benefactor, and treat those that come after you – or try your luck at being cheap. Either way, it’s an interesting experiment that explores surprise, kindness and encourages interactions.

Cabel describes a scene from the cafe:

As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for. Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn’t answer.

Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here’s one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!

Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done.

Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)

As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited “arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!” yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise.

It was so worth it.

Seven Places to find FREE eBooks!!!!

Every year schools around the world spend thousands of dollars on textbooks that are often outdated by the end of their first year in the classroom. Ebooks, many of them free, can represent huge savings for schools over purchasing textbooks. Here are seven places that you can find free ebooks. Definitely I ain't posting this to encourage piracy!!! suggest you use discretion while downloading book and ENCOURAGE writing!!!!

1. Planet eBook is a free service where teachers and students can find classic literature titles available as free downloads. Planet eBook adds new titles at regular intervals. Subscribe to the Planet eBook blog or newsletter to keep track of the latest additions to the collection. For browsing purposes, Planet eBook offers previews of titles through the Issuu pdf publishing service. Using the previews students can get an overview of a title without committing to downloading the entire ebook.

2. E-Books Directory contains nearly 1700 titles. The E-Books Directory provides freely downloadable textbooks, documents, and lecture notes. You can search the directory by keyword or browse through hundreds of categories.

3. Science Books Online is a directory of free ebooks for all areas of science. The books range from small PDF pamphlets to full-length texts made available in electronic form for free. Most of the materials have to be downloaded in order to be viewed but there are some materials that you can view directly within your browser.

4. Free Book-s is a search engine that scans many collections of ebooks to find free content that matches your search. I gave Free Book-s a test drive using academic terms like "physics" and terms like "fly fishing" to see what kids of results would be generated. In both cases I found Free Book-s returned very relevant results.

5. BookServer is a search engine for finding, borrowing, downloading, and purchasing books in digital form. A search on BookServer will yield results listing both free ebooks and ebooks for sale.

6. Flat World Knowledge provides free textbooks created by experts in various academic fields. A quick look at the "find my class" section of Flat World Knowledge reveals that these textbooks are being used in few dozen colleges across the United States.

7. Google Books hosts thousands of books that are in the public domain. Many of the public domain books can be viewed and downloaded in their entirety for free. To find public domain books go into the advanced search options and select the "public domain only" and "full text" options to find free full-length books.

Banker to the Poor - Review

Recently finished reading Banker to the Poor: The Autobiography of Muhammad Yunus, Founder of Grameen Bank and told myself that I would definitely write a review of the book, because there is so much we can learn from an Economics Professor who went on to become the Father of Micro-Credit!!!(That's my own title giving ;-) ).. Thanks to my exposure to the development sector, definitely I knew what Micro Finance (as we call it in India) is all about but glad that I actually got to read the book at last!!!!

I was inspired and amazed at the simplicity of Yunus's concept, and appalled at the resistance he met putting it into action.

It started when he found that 42 villagers were being kept in thrall -- literally bonded slavery -- to moneylenders in one village. The total sum they owed was $27. Yunus put his hand into his own pocket, and the system of microcredit was born. THEN came the long, long, attempt to get other sponsors, government help, and a lot more.

By the end of the book they have branched out into cooperatives, health care, cell-phone providers, and the internet. As he says, no US businessman would even consider operating without a telephone.... but there is criticism that "The rural poor do not need the luxury of a telephone." But telephones help the micro-borrowers improve their businesses and find the best markets for their products. So Yunus's bank, Grameen, created GremeenPhone to provide service to villages. Some villages didn't have electricity, so they then created a nonprofit company dedicated to developing wind turbines, solar energy, etc! Just one example of Yunus's progressive thinking and nothing-is-too-tough attitude!

Not in the book, but it's inspiring to see how Yunus's idea has caught on in other parts of the world. There's even a US organization, Kiva, which allows people to extend loans over the Internet to individual small businesses in far-flung countries. This is an idea that has to grow.

Definitely, Yunus dreams of a world without poverty and the books gives you a feelin that it's very possible given that all the factors fall in place!!! But hell what the harm in dreamin!!!

Interesting I also came across an article which is pretty hard on Yunus but thought I'll share the same with you folks.. irrespective of the article which I'm sharin, definitely I recommend this as a must read book!!!

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article6860170.ece

Can't MEN be TRUSTED????

For those who travel long distances/overnight by bus especially those operated by Private companies would understand what I'm gettin at and the rest, you will too get an idea what I'm gettin at!!!

Here I'm as always headed for the bus station to attend yet another weddin over the weekend and when I board the bus I see that there is a young lady sittin next to me. For a start ist surprises me coz usually the travel agent ensure he provides LADIES SEAT only for women, well I decided that I would be decent and ensure I would not even trouble the lady for the hand rest and keep my distance.

Well, the bus is yet to start and I see that the lady is still seated there, I decided to step out and wait for the bus to start and then there is this usual Boarding pass which is issued once you board the bus, no idea why they bother.. guess for accounting purpose ;-)!!!

Gettin to the point, it so happens that once the guy walked in to issue the boardin pass, the lady requested for the inevitable..."LADIES SEAT Please" and I was like tellin ofcourse "Hell lady, even if you pay me I wouldn't dare touch ya" well, works against my consciousness but hell she wanted to change her seat!!! Well thatz when I decided, if she is plannin to move then I ain't movin from my seat and decided I can be chivalrous to a certain extent, but hell you can't treat me as "touch me not" or rather in this case "sit near me not"!!! The guy went about issuin the boarding pass and then came the time for the bus to leave and our man conveniently asked me to move my butt!!! Hell was I gonna do that.. I told him, sorry ask someone else to move.. I ain't movin.. Why would I want to????? Guess I needed to say that to massage my ego :D

Well, the lady has no choice, if she needs a change of seat, she bloody well move her butt and not mine!!!! I'm definitely glad that the trains and government buses don't give that option of LADIES SEAT, otherwise we would have to dedicate one train for them and the latest I've heard is that Mumbai has already introduced a LADIES ONLY local!!! In fact even Namma Bengalooru had these pink color buses which were LADIES SPECIAL, guess they had to scrap it coz I don't see them around any more!!!

Well I understand that all Men aren't trustworthy, but it ain't FAIR to generalize!!! Anyways sure I'm gonna have lots of bricks thrown over me on this topic but hell I still feel it Ain't FAIR!!! Probably I should start MEN's SEAT plz CAMPAIGN;-)

2010 - Let it be a New Year of hope and prosperity!!!

We all awaited for 2010 to happen and definitely we all are ready with our new set of resolution and guess by the time I post this most of those resolutions would have been broken ;-)!!!!

Just wanted to thank all of you for encouraging me to keep writing here and also for religiously following my blog!!!!

Definitely shall try to improve this year!!!!

Wishing all of you a Happy and Prosperous New Year Ahead!!!

Warm Regards,

Sals