Sun Tzu

I approached reading The Art of War by Sun Tzu with a bit of hesitiation mostly because I didn't know what to expect from a 2500 year old document on of all things warfare. I have heard lots of people in the corporate world talk about this book and its timelessness and how it is about warfare and more importantly overcoming adversity and challenges. I got a copy of the book a few weeks back and must say I was pleasantly surprised.

Little is known about Sun Tzu except that he lived in 6th century China about the same time as Confucius. He was a military strategist and came from a warrior class in ancient China.

Here are some verses from The Art of War that struck a chord with me :

• If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.
• Water shapes its course according to the nature of the ground over which it flows; the soldier works out his victory in relation to the foe whom he is facing.

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On a unrelated note, here is an interesting article I read on the googleblog .

Expanding girls' horizons

Recently I was one of several Googlers who volunteered at the Expanding Your Horizons in Science and Mathematics conference at Mills, where I also teach. This annual event provides career panels and hands-on workshops to encourage middle-school girls to keep studying science and mathematics as they enter high school. I led a workshop, "How to Build a Computer," in which the students learned binary arithmetic and built a half-adder.

I don't know who had more fun, the girls or the volunteers! Google is a sponsor of the national Expanding Your Horizons Network, whose workshops have reached over 625,000 girls.