A N G

Auditor

2010-12-21T17:53:00.002+01:00

With great power comes great responsibility. - Spiderman

With great responsibility comes great power. - Auditor

The link between Toyota and Tomatoes

2010-07-01T23:38:00.004+02:00

Today Toyota announced another news about new round of falsely produced cars, around 200K sold all around the world. It is reported that the engine might suddenly stop during the ride. Well, it is very dangerous if you're passing another car in a narrow road and if another car is coming from the other direction.

The situation looks like this: The mistakes that Toyota makes cause a wide-spread problem around the world, and Toyota should be blamed for it.

I believe not. It is just a matter of consolidation of volumes. Check this out:

(The numbers are just made up)

Year -- No of cars produced -- No of car manufacturers
1970 -- 10.000 - 100
1980 -- 100.000 - 200
1990 -- 500.000 - 150
2000 - 5.000.000 - 100
2010 - 50.000.000 - 50

So simply there's a remarkable consolidation because of the cost issued driven by the thin margins in the automotive industry. It kills the diversity. Where 1 manufacturer was responsible of (manufacturing) X amount of cars 40 years ago, they are now of 1000X cars. So the mistake of 1 entity could damage X amount of car owners before, now 1000X.

15 years ago in my country there have been around 1000 different types of tomato seeds. You would differentiate from the shape, the color, the smell etc. Now there are only two types of seed, imported seeds from the Netherlands and Israel.

Now that I wonder if there's a mitigation plan in case of an illness very specific to these two kinds of tomato seeds hits Turkey? It is very probable. Every plant has a weakness, but the most successive ones are not affected by many of the diseases. But what if 'that' disease comes and hits to the farms in Turkey?

That is step one. What about the grain seeds all around the world? The farmers around the world prefer the most productive seeds, decreasing the diversity from thousands to tens of different types of grains. What if a disease very specific to the surviving grain seeds in the world?

Toyota pays do the people who suffered, and the case is closed. But would there be anybody to save the world if there's no bread left to feed the people? I am not sure..

Efficiency is good. But I guess diversity is even better :)

Random Thoughts on Europeans and Muslim Immigrants

2010-04-03T12:26:00.000+02:00

Recently we heard 2/3 of the Swisses voting in favor of the ban for new minaret construction, France banning burqa from public places, unstoppable rise of a anti-Islamic party in the Netherlands, Belgium to vote for banning the full-veil and many other little things that cannot find themselves a place in international press.
There are 6 million Muslims in France, there are growing Muslim minorities in Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria etc. But that is just now! I remember reading an article in the Economist, where it mentioned that in 2009 half of the new-born babies in the Netherlands had Muslim parents. So imagine Netherlands 2030.
So at one side we have Europeans with an increasing antipathy to Muslim immigrants, and on the other side we have an increasing share of Muslim population. It seems like the issues will grow bigger.
I can empathize with both sides. I imagine waking up in my hometown in 2030, and find out that half of my city is not Turkish, I would freak out. (e.g. 55% of Rotterdam's population is immigrant-originated) On the other hand, from an immigrant's point of view, no matter what my roots are, if I am born in a country, that is my homeland. So who are you to tell me how to live in my own country?
But I find it ridiculous that the native-Europeans, who complain about increasing immigration, generally make only 1 or maximum two children. It has been so obvious in the last decades that if you would like to keep this economic growth you should have a big population accordingly. So either make babies, or don't complain about the immigrants.
I also think that integration is just a European utopia. The majority of the Turkish-originated immigrants I met in Europe classify themselves as Turkish, not Dutch, Belgian or German. Turkish is spoken at home, leading the children learn Turkish as their mother tongue, not the local language. Instead of adopting local habits, they make their neighborhood look like a Turkish neighborhood.

I start thinking of similar things whenever I see people talking to Turkish on the streets. Maybe I should read not only articles, but find a good book about immigration.

Life in cycles

2010-03-04T20:17:00.003+01:00

I don't know if this will ever come to an end. It has been years that I have been living my life in one year cycles, now even there's no change in the horizon for this year, my body is already reacting if there's a change on the way.

Well, I already started my job hunt, but I don't know if my new job will be in the same company, city or country. Everything might or might not change, but my I feel like everything is going to change upside down in some months again. Moving to a new country every year since 2006 made me expect to move to another country.

It is a hard-to-control stuff now. I am getting less tolerant at work, I tend to not think long term for my position even when I know that I might stay.

The mood for the change has started.

Dunno what is to come...

Forget about it!

2009-11-26T21:23:00.004+01:00

Yesterday I found out that I had forgotten to bring sport shoes to gym, and today I forgot taking spare clothes with me. As usual, first I got frustrated, but then I started thinking about the various things I managed to forget 'till now:

My belt in the office toilets
My motorbike in front of the doner kebap shop (and went back home to sleep)
My mother's, father's, sister's and girlfriend's bday
That my flight was at 11:00 am (and had brunch at the airport for 2 hours)
To take my food to the office, 3 consequent days!
My e-banking password
To take an important document with me to the Spanish Embassy when I went there to apply for a visa
The keys on the door
To lock my bike (and two of them got stolen)
My suit in the taxi on the way to my best friend's wedding
...

That moment, when I find out that I forgot something important -again-, is the moment that I feel the most stupid, and I mutter: "AGAIN!". I think I am the biggest candidate of "Youngest Alzheimer Patient" :\

First Impressions on "5 Countries / 5 Occupations in 5 Consecutive Years"

2009-11-19T22:13:00.006+01:00

( + )

See lots of new / different / interesting cities, not like a tourist but in 360 degrees. Not only the hotel and the center square, but also the garbage man, non-touristic restaurants, the park to chill-out on a Sunday afternoon etc.
Get familiar with different cultures, question what yours imposes on you. (Quote from Sebas: The farther from home, the deeper into yourself). Find out what aspects of life-understanding are relative, which are identical everywhere.
Enhance your understanding of business by working in various company cultures /scales / industries / geographies
Meet some people with interesting stories, and see how these interesting stories can turn into ordinary ones when you are with 15 other strangers from all around the world

( ~ )

Get used hear different languages around. Switch to French when you just start feeling comfortable with Spanish
Get addicted to change

( - )

Never own anything. Anything that does not fit into your luggage does not belong to you.
Never get a senior job. 'till the time you get promoted you are already in another country / company.
Can't have a close friend near you. 'All means none' in some cases, the more time you spend with new people, the less close friends you make.
The hassle of moving multiplied by a thousand
Get used to being a stranger / foreigner, get familiar with registration and immigration offices, have contact with few local people,

The Best Restaurant in Brussels

2009-11-07T22:33:00.002+01:00

Nothing could make me happier! There is a Chilean restaurant just by my house, in which an old man plays guitar and sings all night long. Oh... Such a relief... If I were to ask only one single thing from God, that would be something similar I guess.

They cook real good... Dunno about all the menu, but the Argentinean Steak is 'perfecto'. Also, There's a family serving inside the restaurant. You can see the little boy crying and asking his juice to be replaced by Coke, or a daughter serving, a father playing and singing, and a mother smiling and talking to the customers if they like the food. That's life.

It has been three weeks in Brussels. For me, this is the most beautiful place of Brussels.

Are the religions too process-oriented?

2009-08-26T12:14:00.006+02:00

I don't know how it was for you, but I've heard a lot of these phrases in the religious education:

"Have good intentions. When you act with good intentions, even if it goes wrong God will still evaluate it as meritorious, and you'll be rewarded."

Now I question: Doesn't it matter what my actions resulted in? Shouldn't I care about result? Should I only care about my intention? Isn't the religion too process-oriented?

Should I give money to a beggar if I don't know what he's gonna do with that money? I have good intentions (e.g. to stop his hunger) but he might just use that money to buy a bottle of wine... The religious teaching I've heard tells me that what I did was good because I had good intentions.

Maybe we should be taught that results matter not only for business but also charity. We can be taught "cause good" instead of "do good". This way the people who have good intentions would have a greater impact in the world.

Uncertainity

2009-08-12T14:32:00.012+02:00

I used to hate uncertainty. Uncertainty used to trigger many restless and annoying feelings in me, which I had hard times fighting against. Many times I rushed to the first exit out of uncertainty even if that was not the best option for me.

BEFORE

I still dislike uncertainty but I think I'm improving with this. Recently the uncertainties I face are greater than before, but I'm doing a good job keeping cool with it (e.g. I don't get drunk every night :P). I am aware of that fact that not everything is certain/definite in life. Today, I don't have a job (not even an ongoing application process), I don't know where I will be in November, when I'll be back home, or how I'm going to payback the loan ... so on. But now I know that stressing about it will not help but will make it harder to overcome.

AFTER

There's nothing 'present' and 'uncertain', uncertainty refers to future. All I can do is to prepare to face it -without getting crazy- and do my best when it is time.

The Management Control professor had told us "A good manager is the one who controls the uncertainties better". It is time to be a good manager of my life now ;)

My IE Experience is Over... Finally!

2009-08-11T09:29:00.007+02:00

Third period of IE ended and there's only one trimester left, which does not involve taking courses or being at the campus. I chose to make an internship and hopefully I'll graduate in December, when I submit my internship report. You can call me "Master" in 2010 :)

Studying a masters program in IE has been a very intense experience. Additionally, I still don't know why but I was constantly unhappy during the year, and it made it even harder to succeed the courses. I think I lost "The Secret" and "The Power of Now" and I got lost in small details. Whatever, I thought about the satisfactory and non-satisfactory aspects of the year and I made the following list:

(+)

I received a high quality education on business
I will receive a masters title soon
Although they were very few, I got to know some interesting people

(-)

Since our program was in its first year, I felt as the victim of inexperienced staff
Grades were not fair
No direct contribution to my career: Maybe it is because of the economic crisis but the school could only offer some uninteresting jobs for native Spanish speakers. Also there was almost no help in career building, except some very generalist class sessions (e.g. how to prepare your CV). Still, the companies hire the most through references, and adding a masters title to your CV does not make any sense unless you have a recommendation stamp on your CV. I am convinced that a recently obtained masters title from IE will not help me get a better job immediately, but it will help me perform better in my next job.

In the end it is cool because the main reason I wanted to study a masters in IE was me being not satisfied with my previous education, and I believe that I compensated the difference with very well designed courses delivered by industry-experienced professors. So if we stick to the core, I should be satisfied with what I get.

Now it is the time for a relaxing vacation, and soon I will start job-hunting.

Yes!

Spain - Turkey in Bernabéu

2009-04-19T16:15:00.006+02:00

Since I arrived to Madrid I wanted to see a game in Bernabéu, a football temple that a real football fan has to be in at least once. Lucky me, Turkey played against Spain in Santiago Bernabéu when I live in Madrid so I had the opportunity to see that special game in the stadium. Though, it was not the best feeling to see your team losing in a stadium full of opposing team's fans :\

Why should I work?

2009-03-28T11:15:00.003+01:00

In the last 4-5 years I have been living in a life in 1-year-terms. Ever year, I change my job, my house, the country I live in and the friends that I see... And every year during the period of "deciding what to do next year" this question comes up to my mind: Why should I find a job and work? Why don't I just stop?

I think that I start questioning this because I start feeling tired at the 2/3 of the term, and I start getting rejections in my job search. Still, this does not make my question invalid.

If we go back to the originals, the humankind worked for survival. They needed to find food and shelter to be able to survive, so they worked. As my hometown is not economically demanding, I believe that I could live there without an economical constraint that endangers my survival. So why should I work?

I also believe that capitalism created a generation who only thinks about consuming. If I work, my role in the world will be to feed the needs of those who can afford buying the services / goods the company I work for offers. Many of the companies that my profile fits in does not provide added value to the world, they only serve for satisfying the needs of the people who can afford. So why should I work?

Also, every country in the world want to have the same standards as the developed countries have now. I believe that the earth does not have enough resources to offer to humankind to get every human live in the standards of a developed country.(Unfortunately, this is a fact that if there are 12 people in a room where there are resources for only 10 people, any two of them will not have a good fortune.) So instead of working for the capitalist system if I were to work for the improvement of the poor's situation, I'm not sure if I would be working for a good purpose. So why should I work?

-----------------------------------
I'm amazed by the fact that how my perspective on similar topics can change drastically every time I think about it. Maybe this is what it takes to be 25 :)

Blue Cafe

2009-03-27T20:00:00.007+01:00

My world is miles of endless roads
That leaves a trail of broken dreams
Where have you been I hear you say
I'll meet you at the Blue Cafe
'Cause, this is where the one who knows
Meets the one who does not care
Cards of fate, the older shows
The younger one, who dares to take
The chance of no return
Where have you been?
Where are you going to?
I want to know what is new
I want to go with you
What have you seen?
What do you know is new?
Where are you going to?
'Cause I want to go with you

Homeless Drunks @Parque del Retiro

2009-03-15T12:50:00.003+01:00

Yeah, it's already spring in Madrid, and I started enjoying the nice weather and the big park in Madrid! I have some photos uploaded to flickr of one of the days we were there... just in case you wanna see more of our randomness...

Wanna play with the tables on Firefox?

2009-03-15T12:25:00.003+01:00

I use Google Analytics to track my blog's traffic so I found out that 93.33% of my visitors use Firefox. So I decided that it would be relevant to share these new add-ons with you.

I like Firefox generally I prefer it to other browsers. But there's a main problem with the tables: You cannot copy paste the tables as you do it in Internet Explorer :\ If you are actually "working" and need to extract some data from a website it is almost impossible to do it with Firefox.

So I researched a bit and found these great tools that allows you to copy paste the tables, and even do more stuff with them:

1- Table2Clipboard 0.2.1: Allows you to copy to clipboard the selected rows/colums - or all the table - from a website

2-TableTools 0.26: Sort, filter or copy any table (ctrl+alt+click sorts, ctrl+shift+click filters ... )

These two tools allow you to play with Firefox tables as they are on Excel.

Attention: Addictive :P

I moved again

2009-01-25T13:34:00.004+01:00

I moved to the 7th house in the last 8 years. I lived in 2 different houses in İstanbul, 1 in Mexico, 2 in the Netherlands and 2 in Spain.

But I know that I am not fed up with moving around yet! There are many more countries to live in, so do many more houses :)

End of alcoholism or just a short break?

2009-01-21T20:50:00.005+01:00

If we have ever talked about me, you should have already heard that I describe myself as social alcoholic. I don't know if this term exists as I use it but I can explain what I mean.

It is not social drinker: Social drinking refers to casual collateral drinking without the intent to get drunk. (Wikipedia)

It is not pure alcoholism: Alcoholism refers to any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages despite health problems and negative social consequences (Wikipedia)

It is somewhere in between. I haven't actually suffered health problems or important negative social consequences of my drinking habit but I can easily say that I have been drinking a lot more than an average person.

Some may think that the amount I drink is normal. Actually I have heard people saying that. In opposition to that, I think that the amount of social alcoholics around is so much that the people think that this is normal.

Since I arrived to Madrid, I have been having the most non-alcoholic period of my life since 15. It's weird though, Spain is all about partying and drinking for people at my age, but somehow it did not stimulate the alcoholic inside me :) Lately I have been drinking maximum once a week, or even less. Record low!

As per my values and according to the way I wanna live my life, alcohol should almost disappear from my life. In the near future, when I settle down, I want to be drinking less than a usual social drinker, or maybe stop completely.

Now I question this non-alcoholic period in Madrid... Is it the end of alcoholism for me or just a short break?

Time will answer my question I guess :)

An intense start for second period

2009-01-15T21:33:00.005+01:00

I just looked at the bottom-right of my screen to check the date. Nope, this time I wanted to know the date not for knowing how many days left for my next assignment delivery, but simply for checking what the date is today.

I noticed that it has been only 1 week since I came back from holidays... Only one week.

I decided to move to a new room closer to the school, agreed with my friend to rent her room, agreed with the agency about the contract ending terms
I met about 20 new people
I started working with my new work group, which is a different experience than my previous work group. We will be working together very close (at least 5 meetings a week) for the following three months
10 new courses started for the second period
I worked on more than 5 cases for 5 different courses
Hung out with friends from AI
I had a meeting with Careers office to draft an action plan for the coming months
I attended to a "Careers in Consulting" meeting delivered by BLT, a British recruiting agency.

This was an intense start itself, and it gives me a clue how the second period will look like.

I think a challenge is finding out that you have 10 more to-do items, just after you say the 2 to-do items you already have are already too much for you. (This saying could turn into a proverb if I had more advanced written English skills :P)

However, I believe that I can handle even heavier workload pretty well. I proved this to myself in the first 6 months of my AI term. I just need to increase my efficiency at home. Currently I spend many hours doing nothing, and after that I stress about readings for the day after.

Hmmm, let's see how it goes ;)

Switch

2009-01-08T18:53:00.006+01:00

Coming back from vacations (especially if this vacation is spent in the hometown) feels like switching identities.

It has been eight years since I left my hometown and I have changed a lot during that period. During vacations I visit my hometown for such a short period that explaining that I have changed is harder than behaving as if I haven't changed. And because the vacations are for relaxing, I follow the easy way, and behave as if I haven't changed.

Yesterday when I arrived to Madrid I was still wearing my hometown identity on me, and I was thinking what the hell I was doing here. Even this morning going to school was quite bothering. But now, at the end of the day, I feel like "loading" my recent identity again.

I wish it was as easy as "Eject -> take out the disk -> insert the other one -> loading, please wait -> DONE!". Yeah, I was born a geek :P

First period is over

2008-12-19T16:37:00.001+01:00

One third of my new experience is over :)

Yep, the first period of my master study is over. I think it was very satisfactory overall. I feel that I learned a lot.

Some highlights / thoughts from the first period:

First time in my life I studied economics, marketing, organizational behaviour course. Also studying in English and using case method were new.
Good professors, even some inspiring ones
Helping matters. The more you help the more you receive. Even if your objective is not about receiving the help back, somehow you end up receiving it. I think this is the poetic justice :)
I feel like I'm back to my glorious days in elementary school where I used to be the most successful child in town. Most probably I am not the most successful one in IE Business School but I feel that I'm shining again!
4th country / city / home in 4 consecutive years. I am becoming international.
I haven't had a proper social life during the first period, and it lead my performance decrease in the last part of the first period (the part where final exams take place :\) I think it will be better if I enjoy more the second period, but keep the academic performance at the top at the same time.

Gadgets in Google Docs - Spreadsheet

2008-12-11T20:41:00.007+01:00

I did not want this blog to be a -technology updates- blog, but I'll die if I don't write about this.

Have you checked Google Docs - Spreadsheets lately? We used to use it last year in AI for weekly priorities, because it allowed multiple users editing simultaneously, but it was lacking some other core features of a spreadsheets software.

Today, I checked it again and I got completely amazed with the new features it has! Ok, I still believe that MS Excel is the most complex software in the world, but Google is doing a very fancy online software that serves even better than Microsoft Excel in some ways. For example graphics and charts... Unlike static MS Excel charts, you can add animated charts and gadgets to your spreadsheet.

If you want to get amazed what Google Docs Spreadsheets can do for you, create / upload an excel sheet with numerical data, and then go Tools -> Gadgets. Those Gadgets provide so many creative ways of graphically demonstrating data! I am sure when you go through them you will see the most creative animated and static graphs that you could not even imagine yourself. After you play with those Gadgets you can publish the gadgets with your data.

The better news is, these gadgets are being developed not by Google but by independent developers and companies all around the world voluntarily, so I believe that the amount of different gadgets we have there will be countless soon.

There you go if you want to check it: http://docs.google.com

Less Popular Websites That I Like

2008-12-03T21:35:00.008+01:00

Gapminder

Worldwide statistics of PPP, infant mortality rate, children per woman, life expectancy, CO2 emissions etc. broken down by countries and years. You can see all this statistics one by one or combined and animated! If you wanna know more about the world go check http://graphs.gapminder.org/world/, you will like it for sure!

Slideshare

If you're type of person who prefers to view presentations instead of long readings check slideshare.net, you'll find something. Also -Top Presentations of the Day- part is worth to see.

Google Reader

Mmm, dunno if still unpopular but I definitely like it. It collects all the feeds you follow to one single place, checks all your feeds each hour, and stores them online. You receive the feeds as you receive your emails. - www.google.com/reader

Feedburner

If you are providing feeds from your website, and don't know how frequent people check your feed instead of checking your website, direct your website's feed to feedburner, and it will tell you how popular your RSS feeds are - (You may not know about feedburner yet, but for sure Google knows about it: Google has acquired feedburner - http://www.feedburner.com/google)

Feed43

This converts websites to RSS feeds. I have many friends on nomadlife.org, and as far as I see there's problem with the feeds of nomadlife.org. So what I do is to convert my friends' blogs into RSS feeds using Feed43. Working pretty well...

Streetview function of Google Maps
Google now goes in the streets of some cities (for example Madrid) and take 360 degrees pictures of the streets by car. If you haven't checked a popular city lately, go check Madrid for example, you can walk on the streets of Madrid and see actually how it looks like.

Jake and Amir

College Humor, videos from two funny guys. I used to have so much fun with a similar Turkish comedian group, and now I found the same format in English. So I share! :) - www.jakeandamir.com

How stuff works

If you are curious about how the things you see work check this website out: www.howstuffworks.com

Technology and Individualism

2008-11-30T00:46:00.005+01:00

I was watching an episode of an old Turkish TV Series on Youtube. The theme of the episode was a electricity blackout all around Istanbul for a week. Then it showed how it changed people's lives for a week, and how all the neighborhood started gatherings at night, talking and having fun together: Socializing in a physical environment.

It once more reminded me of how individualistic our generation is.

We watch TV, play video games, spend hours and hours on computer (no matter what you are doing on it), study etc... We spend a life ourselves, and we value socializing less because we feel more self-sufficient, backed by the tools provided by technology.

I think I should plan to see more friends these days :)

PS: You may be thinking that "I use Facebook and I socialize through it". Well, I don't use Facebook but I feel that online social networking platforms take the real feeling of socializing away.

Risk and Growth

2008-11-29T17:27:00.003+01:00

Yesterday in the corporate finance class we were discussing how fast-growing companies need to make a choice between liquidity and growth. Basically if you plan to grow and your shareholders' equities are not sufficient you need to look for external funding options (bank loans or other type of debt) in order to fund your growth. To grow using external sources has a higher risk than using your own resources, as you would guess.

Then for a minute I thought about myself. Nobody in my family has ever taken out a loan but me. My father has 30+ years of professional experience and my mother used to work for 7 years before she got married. They never took this kind of a financial risk for any reason. But I took a risk at a very early stage of my professional career to grow. I would classify my family (including me) as a risk-averse group of people, but I think I started to go out of the way.

Finally I start

2008-11-29T17:20:00.006+01:00

,After thinking a lot whether to write or not, I spent some more months thinking where and how to write. As a computer guy, I've created many webpages before that are currently being used by many people (yeah, I created different pages than myaiesec.net as well, and I coded them), and this is the first time I do something that only "I" fill in the content. Cool stuff. Though I''m very excited about the techie part of my blog as well, and I think I succeed to keep my blog up, soon I''ll start playing with it and adding new features of my own :)

Lessseeeeee!