Some Mails I've Written

Last Post!

2007-04-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

What happened to my blog? Hmmm. Good question. I've asked myself that question many times. Some of the answers I came up with -

When I started the blog, I was in New York. I didn't have any friends I could wax philosophical with. Initially the blog gave an outlet for that.

After it got recognised by a couple of top shots in the internet world, I kind of hit a high and the blog became more of an attention seeking device!

Once I came back to India, I realised that life in India is quite different! (I had forgotten what it is like!) In India, somehow you just go with the flow. You argue, debate a whole bunch more, but always with real friends rather than virtual ones. Thoughts, questions pop up throughout the week and instead of getting channelised into writing they become very intense discussions!

I also realised there's a huge difference between talking and doing. Talk is cheap. Doing is tougher.

Finally, I'm quite tired of writing. I don't need an outlet in prose any more. I've started many blog posts but never got around to finishing them. At the end I just gave up!

But everything that's born has to die. So what I've been thinking of late is that I'll give the blog a quiet burial that it deserves and remove it from the virtual world altogether. It just seems to hang there like a dead star. Maybe thoughts are ephemeral for a reason. Maybe they are not for eternity. Maybe the book is over. Maybe the universe ends in a whisper.

That sounds like a good 'last post'.

Fame....

2005-08-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Any fame is a by-product of making something that means something.

Thanks, Banksy

Some Thoughts on Management

2005-08-07T21:22:00.000-07:00

It's been ten years since I started working in a corporate, and I sometimes wonder what I would say to myself ten years ago, if I could, from all the experience that has happened.

One of the things that I'd love to tell anybody who's willing to hear is that 'management' is unnecessarily overhyped. Considering how much of the work is done by managers and how much is done by the team, I'm still amazed by how much of a halo 'management' has. Sometimes, it feels like this huge illusion that has been created by management schools and managers themselves to make it feel so ultra important. It might be important, but the huge amount of bad managers belies this.

I was trying to Google for 'Egoless programming', and surprisingly there's a huge amount of material out there on this. In fact, it is a term to be used and watched out for! Wow! But when I try for egoless management, there's hardly anything! The second link talks about Michael Dell, which comes as no surprise. From the article -

But most amazing of all to his peers is Dell's near egoless management. From the start, he has sought out gray-haired mentors to help show him the way.

Like programming, there are two tenets of management -

You own your own words
Assume good intent

(This from Community Building via Voidstar)

Assume Good Intent also means a lot of trust. What happens in reality is so counterintuitive that it could only result from severe brainwashing! The same person who when (s)he was part of the team doing good, suddenly starts suspecting the team when they start managing! Wierd, eh? This particular point sometimes gets obliterated under huge manifestos and the many, many rules of doing management well, like the Six Thinking Hats by De Bono.

In my experience, the best managers have always used inclusive terms, like us and we, when referring to the whole team. The worst managers have always used exclusive terms, like you when talking to the team. If that's not alienation, I don't know what is!

All these thoughts about creativity, time management, and all the other jargon associated with good management, should come after these first two tenets.

Of course, there will be slackers, but the goal of management should not be to treat everyone as slackers. Rather it should be to think of everyone as trying to do their own bests.

I get the feeling that mostly managers feel that 'management' is synonymous with 'control'. Well, then they would be called 'Controllers', wouldn't they?

Recently I read an absolutely fantastic blog-post by Paul Graham called What Business Can Learn from Open Source -

Companies ensure quality through rules to prevent employees from screwing up. But you don't need that when the audience can communicate with one another. People just produce whatever they want; the good stuff spreads, and the bad gets ignored. And in both cases, feedback from the audience improves the best work.

I think the same could be said about a lot of management!

Management should be there to guide, not control. Management should be there to listen, not talk. Management should be about seeing the bigger picture, not the nitty gritties. I think the first thing that managers should realise that if it weren't for the team, they wouldn't be there!

Virtual People

2005-08-03T00:03:00.000-07:00

Another day, don't feel like going to work, but have to.

During the ride to office, I wonder, what this life is all about? As usual, there are no answers.

Reach work, check mail, do the rounds, take a coffee break. Couple of cigarettes and the question is still there at the back of my head. But by this time of the day, the mind has become totally numb to personal quests!

While I wait for the elevator to come, there's another person next to me. 'Some kind of worker', is the thought that's there, at an unconscious level. So, as usual, with people I don't think I know (sometimes even with those whom I do!), I ignore the person.

We get into the elevator, I press the button. Everything just like an automaton. I lean back against the wall. Suddenly, the man says, "Namaskara, sir". I finally look at him. He looks vaguely familiar. "How many years have you been abroad?", he asks. "Quite a few", I say, thinking, 'too many to count'. "I saw you last at the old office", he says, "I work in the canteen, it's been many years".

"Yes, it has. How have you been?"

"I've been fine".

The elevator stops. I've not reached my floor. He has. "See you later", he says, before getting off. I wave, the elevator doors close, and starts moving again.

I wonder about this person. So many years it's been, I wonder what all has happened in his life. Has he been able to marry his daughter off? Has he been able to provide for his son's education? I think that this earth is made of real people. Real people like this guy, who make the world go round. Who work not for the sake of work, but for others. Both in terms of what they do, as well as the money they earn from it.

And then I think about myself. How far away from the world I really am. I wonder about big things like 'job satisfaction'. About complex sounding words like 'vision' and 'quest'.

Do I know how much a kilo of potatoes cost? How about a dozen eggs? Do I know how much it costs to eat at home compared to eating out? When, really, was the last time I sweated? When was the last time I bled? When was the last time I lived?

Suddenly, a phrase comes into my head - "Virtual People".

We're all virtual people. We, who are supposed to be changing the world. We, who're supposed to be the most influential 'voting block'. We, who're supposed to be creating wonders. We're all virtual people.

We don't know the meaning of hunger, of thirst. We define simple words like happiness and sadness in paragraphs. We, day after day, write emails, which don't mean anything, which really doesn't make any difference. We're all virtual people. We have our 'luxuries' but we don't know what to do with them. We have our 'conveniences' but we're always inconvenienced. We suffer from vague problems like 'stress' and 'tension'.

What's happened to us? What's gone wrong where? Why have we forgotten to feel joy? Why have we forgotten to cry?

The day thankfully is over. The ride is the same. Traffic. The mind is riding the bike without thinking about it. 'Virtual People' just spins round and round inside my head.

There must be a way out. There has to be. This bubble has to have an edge somewhere. Somewhere, if I walk through, I'll see the sun and smell the grass.

Someday. Someday.

Paper Toys Again - "Paper Forest"

2005-07-29T23:56:00.000-07:00

Paper Forest is one of the best paper toys website I've seen. It has an amazing collection of both origami as well as cut-and-paste toys. All toys are free downloads, and they're really wonderful.

The latest are from the Yamaha website. They have paper cut-and-paste toys of some wonderful animals as well as bikes!! You can download the colour pdf files and really have a ball.

Here're two that I really like -

The Lemur

And of course, the incredible XJR1300!

Enjoy!

All kinds of Paper Toys and Origami!

2005-07-20T09:37:00.000-07:00

I've been wanting to write this for some time. I've been seeing numerous paper toys - origami, cut and paste toys, and others, on the internet and I thought I'll put all these together on one post.

So this one is for all the kids I know. (And the ones who are still kids at heart!)

Let's start with some Victorian Toys. And here are some dinosaurs! A site with lots of origami is here. I found this 3D Dragon great fun too, mainly because as you walk beside it, it seems to follow you with it's eyes!!

But Robert J. Lang's site stands way above the crowd, with some fantastic origami animals, birds, even a dinosaur skeleton!! Unfortunately, I couldn't find any diagrams for download there.

A great mechanical cut-and-paste toy is this Paper Rocket, which shoots up almost two floors high on pressurised air! Moving on, here are some airplanes, and here's one which flies by flapping it's wings!

For kids who're a little older, here's a very nice Chess Set, including the chess board! And here's a 12-sided calendar to keep on their desk!

But this will surely be one of the most interesting to create. This is a Dirkon Pin Hole Camera, through which you can actually shoot pictures and develop them!

One of the more useful for adults and kids alike is this site where you can print your own graph paper, according to your requirements!

Finally, if you're just looking for some posters, check out National Geographic's Poster page. You can print some fantastic posters on regular A4 paper and put them together.

Not to forget the kids who're still pining for a Mac, you can fulfill all your fantasies of owning a Mac here!

All of these can be printed out on a regular A4 paper from any printer. (Which is what I found really useful, because when I was young and tried origami, getting the papers with the right colours was always a tough job! Not to mention expensive!)

Thanks to Boing Boing.

Update: I discovered that all these links have been consolidated on a very nice site called WebZen

Namdu Bangalore!

2005-05-29T02:35:00.000-07:00

The contrasts hit me. A long time ago, a friend who had returned from abroad had told me "The culture shock is not as much as when you get there. Its when you come back".

Second day in Bangalore and I'm going to watch Sting perform live. As I reach Palace Grounds, through loads of traffic, we park a distance away and decide to walk up. There are some chaps cleaning the streets. The parking lot is just a huge area, with makeshift markers. There's a lot of dust all around. Past it as we walk through the drive, there are Pepsi hoardings everywhere. They are the official sponsors of the show. There're also vendors in cane baskets selling peanuts in paper cones. I guess this is the only place in the world where you can watch Sting perform live with a handful of charcoal heated peanuts!

As I watch the show, I forget where I am. I look up, the sky looks the same. I can see Orion and his belt. I see trees all around. This could as well have been Central Park in New York. But as I look around, there're people from all walks of life. To the cops minding the crowds, I wonder, what does Sting mean to them?

Sometimes, the whole thing feels too surreal. This juxtaposition of the extreme modern into the extreme primitive. As if different times and worlds have somehow collided and everybody is just doing fine! I feel like screaming to break down the barriers of the different worlds, the different eras. I feel like screaming at the rock swaying crowd and point out the inequalities all around. I feel like screaming at the others to point them out the differences to make them want better. But slowly I realise, this is not a clash of worlds, neither is this a fusion of mindsets. This is a people living in many worlds at the same time.

People who enjoy Zakir Hussain as much as Sting. People who are as comfortable with Andrew Lloyd Webber as with A.R. Rehman. Along with the young and urban there are also people who will shake their heads as they watch teenagers swaying to music on their headphones, but the same people who will want a better future for their children than they ever hoped to have. Time travel is not fiction in this land. All you need to do is change focus.

This is my country. This surreal, mixed-up, confusing, chaotic, enervating, energising land is my home. Struggle is not a part of life here. Struggle is life here. That's what enriches us, makes us stronger. That's what makes us get up after a tsunami hits, dust off our clothes and get back to work the next day. Because tsunamis hit everyday here. Not just of water, but of ideas, cultures, paradigms. And in the midst of it all, we sometimes put forth our hands to shake and sometimes join them together in a Namaskar. That's us. And we're happy doing both.

As the famous Bangalorean saying goes - "We are like this only!"

Bollywood for the skeptical

2005-04-29T12:02:00.000-07:00

India is 'in' these days. There are numerous articles criticising and praising India, and somehow all the things that a lot of the Westerners point out either as good or bad, we've been taking them as a matter of course all our lives. But despite all the numbers and statistics regarding population or surface area, India is still a small, homely, always welcome place to live in. And Bangalore is the jewel in India's IT crown. High speed internet is getting ubiquitous. You can pay all your bills at any of the Bangalore One kiosks which are set up with touch sensitive screens and 24 hour access. But go off the main roads and you're back a few decades.

The other day, riding up Airport Road, one of the most high profile of roads in Bangalore. Steel and concrete structures looming on both sides. And of course, the ever present traffic jam! Decided to take a detour and took a random turn. Didn't know where the road was headed. All of a sudden there are small houses around me. Neat, modest, without any ostentatiousness. Vegetable sellers are hawking their wares. Housewives are gossiping over their boundary walls. Clothes are drying on lines on the terraces. There are no Pepsi signs here. No big hoardings. Quiet, peaceful Bangalore which was always how I've enjoyed Bangalore. A third of a kilometer equates to a third of a century in a city whose name has of late even become a verb!

Somehow this seems to be true to quite a lot of India. Somehow this juxtaposition of the modern with the ancient is what is taken for granted by us. And very, very rarely do I get to read something which puts India just as it is. So when I came across a site called "Bollywood for the skeptical", I was, to say the least, skeptical! A person's perspective, showing as much of the person as it is of India. A very, enjoyable single page read, and with an excellent collection of music too! Fits nicely on one CD, without all the DRM hoopla, giving a wonderful picture of Indian music over the last fifty years or so. Enjoy!

Farewell USA

2005-04-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

The horizon tilts. The runway lights speed up. The scenery blurs. The engines roar. There's a sudden whoosh and the plane is in the air. Farewell USA.

I never wanted to come here. A number of reasons for that. First, it was too easy for a software professional to get here. Everybody comes here. There's really nothing unique about getting to the US. Second, I hated it that the US always seemed to impose itself on every other country - tried to tell the world how to do things while it's own house was, if not a mess, atleast not in order. So why did I come? The project was technically challenging and I thought to myself, let me see with my own eyes what this country is all about!

So, of all places, I landed up in Phoenix! Dry, hot, epitomy of American excess! Big countryside, big cars, big roads, big everything! Not quite Texas, but close! It was soon after coming here that I realised that Americans are vastly different from American foreign policy! (Politics corrupts people, I guess!). With their sense of humour and their warmth, Americans didn't take long to become endearing!

As usual, both me and my wife would take off traversing the countryside at the slightest opportunity. Got a chance to see amazing landscapes and sceneries. From the azure blue of the horsehoe canyon to the ethereal colours of Antelope Canyon. From the sky scraping Californian Redwoods to bone dry white of Death Valley. We enjoyed the South West tremendously and then decided to take the Route 66 as far as we could to reach New York.

Now New York, as Billy Joel has said, is not a city. The rush, the bustle, the hyper speed of walking. Times Square, dirty subways, all of it go to make New York what he correctly mentioned it to be, a state of mind.

New York did a number of things to me. I discovered, literally, the virtual world here. The world of the mind, of the web. I also discovered my love for writing. I discovered Jazz in Harlem bars, and the New York Philharmonic in Central Park. And more than anything else, I discovered friends. Friends who will be dear to me all my life. Friends with whom I've felt I've always known them, friends who've changed from strangers to family within an hour of knowing them. These are the people with whom not only have I had the best experiences with but who have become a part of me. New York to me became a discovery, not only of a city, but of myself.

So, after over two years, it does feel strange to leave this place behind. It does feel wierd to leave all the friends behind. But it will always feel as if they are a part of what I am today. And in these days of high speed communications maybe we'll all still be together in the parallel virtual world.

But as I go back home, I think of what awaits me. India, the ancient world. The one place where anything is possible. The land where four of the six largest religeons took birth. The land where brick laying was known five thousand years ago, the land where stone pillars make music. A potpourri of everything, literally everything, and still welcoming more. In a strange way, going back feels liberating. Going home gives me a sense of freedom. A freedom to fly and soar. Nina Simone's words ring in my mind -

Birds flying high, you know how I feel
Stars in the sky, you know how I feel
Leaves drifting on by, you know how I feel

It's an old world, it's a new world, it's a bold world, for me.

It's an eighteen hour flight to Bombay. My mind goes over as many of the memories I can think of. Some of them trivial, some of them fantastic, all memorable. I think about how I became so engrossed in the political situation even though I couldn't vote! How I got involved in the copyright wars which wage in the US. In essence, how never bieng an American, I was thinking like one! A strange twist of fate. "You are what you attack" as someone once said. I think back about the bias I had of the US, and I think how uninformed I was. Knowledge, as always, makes the world more likeable, but makes oneself more complex! A realisation that I am very different from what I think I am! As I said earlier, this was a discovery.

The seat belt sign dings. The pilot announces that we're over Bombay. The plane tilts. I see lights of a city again. From this height I might have just circled back into New York! The wheels thud. The wind breakers roar in trying to stop this behemoth. The engines wind down.

I'm home.

Goodbye New York, I'll always miss you. I might have left you, but you'll never leave me.

Hiatus

2005-02-13T07:46:00.000-08:00

Blogging from India will take a bit of time. It'll be a while until I get online during my spare time! Till then, I'm biking it up to Bombay and back, catching up with old friends, and seeing the countryside (and life) go by.

Be back soon!

Bill Atkinson Photography

2005-01-24T23:51:00.000-08:00

Bill Atkinson has an exceptional photography site.

I chose to put this picture here, because I've been to 'Antelope Canyon' in Arizona, and its every bit as magical as the photograph looks!

Here is his home page. To see Bill's entire image gallery, click here.

Enjoy!

Headrush

2005-01-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

This is an absolutely great blog I came across recently. It's about education, training and how the brain works! Although the logo shows Creating Passionate Users, the blog is called Headrush.

An excerpt -

The problem with most corporate/adult learning programs is that they're just like school. And the problem with school is that it sucks. It works against the way the brain wants to learn.
The best learning occurs in a stimulating, active, challenging, interesting, engaging environment. It's how the brain works. The best learning occurs when you move at least some part of your body. The best learning occurs when you're actively involved in co-constructing knowledge in your own head, not passively reading or listening.

via Gaping Void

What if....

2005-01-23T13:29:00.000-08:00

What if life had dealt a different set of cards? What if I had taken that left turn instead of the right?

What if I had taken The Road Not Taken?

What if....

And what if one could put all the choices together and create a flowchart out of it?

Someone did!

Thanks to Steeph

Flash in the night!

2005-01-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

Late night. Seth Godin's blog. Just the word Numanuma. Cryptic!

So, after seeing the wierd flash movie, did a Google, and came to an interesting place - Gprime.

Saw some interesting stuff, from the funny The End of the World, to the biographical Craziest, to the ones which I really liked, simple, fun, playful - Cursor Thief and Cursor Thief Live

Coffee Coloured Mugs!

2005-01-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Well, somebody put out this idea in HalfBakery.com. Incidentally, if you haven't visited Half Bakery, you should - it's one of the places on the web which always makes a bad day turn out good!

Back to the idea - This person mentioned that it would be a great idea to have coffee mugs the same colour as you would want your coffee! That way you just pour your milk until the colour matches!

The idea is here

It sounded great, of course, and I forgot all about it, but then suddenly yesterday, I come across this site by a guy called Onkar Singh Kular in London! A British designer, Onkar Singh Kular, has gone ahead and done just what was on Half Bakery!

We live in a very, very interesting world!

via We Make Money Not Art

The Kamats

2005-01-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

Once in a blue moon, a very, very, blue moon, during daily glances over millions of characters of text, does one reach a website which brings pause, quiet and tranquility to the mind. A gateway. To another world. And once having seen the view, your heart aches to turn away. Just wishing everything could be grabbed together right now, in the immediacy of this twenty-first century, in the right-nowness of one-click-publishing, in the splintering of the second on the digital clock face without recognition. But still you turn away, other things in life beckon, leaving the yearning and waiting for another day when the view can be enjoyed again anew.

The URL is www.kamat.com

Calling it just a website is sheer blasphemy. Calling it a portal even, is to demean it, what with Yahoo and MSN having been called the same. I can only call it an awakening.

This is a labour of love by a family of four. The world through their eyes. And not just the world they see, but the world that they have created for us to see through as well. The parents, Krishnanand & Jyotsna Kamat (the dad passed away in 2002), never owned a computer. All their records were in diaries, in photographs, in journals. And it's not as if the computer age just brought in the scanned versions. (Suddenly I realised, that the scanner appeared way after the computer!). No, even after their son created the website, way back in 1995, they continued writing for the web, in longhand!! Kudos to their son and daughter-in-law, Vikas and Hiryoung Kim Kamat, for getting it to where it is now. But there's no denying, it isn't a single person's effort. Amma (Jyotsna Kamat) still posts! Her latest is about a trip she made to Rajasthan!

Here's how my train of thought (and clicks!) went - I wanted to see all the nominees for Indibloggies - the blogging awards for Indian bloggers. That's how I reached the Kamats. From there automatically to 'Kamat BLOG'. While going through the page, right at the bottom, I see this cryptic sentence "Not made with Blogger, Radio, or LiveJournal, but with Kamat Content CrowBot." That is what intrigued the techie in me. As I read further, I realised that the whole page, the site, the portal, the relaying of information, the indexing of pictures, even the searching of pages all the way down to the links within links of the amazing story unfolding before me was entirely done by themselves! I mean the only thing these guys stopped from was building the Operating System!! And all this done by amateurs in their available time!!!!

So, finally, I started reading the content! A mention of K.V. Subbanna caught my eye. Amma's trip reminded Vikas of the Magsaysay award winning author's book "Na Rajasthanadalli". (He's even providing some English translations!) Can you imagine? In this day and age of hyperlinks and the "Blog This" button, someone translating a book for their website? I was humbled, to say the least.

Talking about K. V. Subbanna, Vikas writes -

This "Na Rajasthanadalli" book was published by K.V. Subbanna in 1974. For those who do not know, Subbanna is a great dramatist and thinker in India and has been an awardee of the Magsaysay Prize. Bappa admired him a lot, and it brought me tears to read a recent letter of tribute by him to my father. It touched me because I was suprised how much he had understood Bappa -- the profoundness of great men that is only visible to other great men, something that I had not known or noticed. One of these days I am going to translate the letter...(the tribute by itself is fairly complex, dwelling into the definitions of knowledge, community, learning, teaching, and selflessness).

Kamats. To you, I apologise. My life's too meagre to offer you a tribute.

My wishes are in this blog. And will be in my revisits.

A Musicplasma for Blogs - TouchGraph

2005-01-18T21:21:00.000-08:00

Well, I didn't know where to post this - whether I should post this in my other blog of Virtual Tools and Computer Tweaks (pctweaks.blogspot.com) or here, so in the end I decided to post it in both the places!

Just like Musicplasma is for music and helps in discovering new artists, new music, similarly, TouchGraph has created a visual browser for blogs and websites!

You key in a URL of one of the sites you visit the most often and like and it throws up other sites which are similar in nature!

Quite interesting really. I think slowly visual searching of the web is going to get smarter like this and browsing will be more of a visual experience than a textual one.

via BoingBoing

The London Underground (and it's animals!)

2005-01-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

I came across this intriguing Yahoo 2004 pick called the "Animals of the Underground". That site (more of it later) is really interesting, but I thought of refreshing my memory of the London Underground and it's famous map first.

Harry Beck, an electrical engineer, re-engineered, so to speak the London Underground map 1933, to make it simpler and easier. He based his idea on his regular job and designed it to look like an circuit diagram. Needless to say, it became insanely popular and has forever remained as a design classic and an icon. A brief history of 'The Tube', as it is called, is here.

The Tube map, is instantly recognisable -

Of course, it has changed over all these years. And the question as to whether all these new fangled design actually reflects the land above ground is answered wonderfully in this interactive map! Here you can see how the actual street map differs from today's London Underground map which is way different than the map as it was originally proposed!

And now to the Animals of the London Underground!

Well, you see, if you join different lines along the myriad links which form the London Underground map, you get some very strange shapes. And that's what this site is about.

Here's a bird in flight! (The home page lists an elephant, but somehow I like the bird!)

Thanks to Yahoo Picks 2004, I had a nice walk down memory lane of the London Underground!

Holy COWs!!

2005-01-18T16:12:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is absolutely unbelievable! Bollywood movies to be watched with a click of the mouse, that too for $1.99!! And legally!! (And with Paypal!!!)

Bollywood, led by the ace thespian, Dev Anand is leading this as of now. And it's called Cinema on Web (COW - Hence the title!!)

Yahoo Finance covers the "Cinema on Web" concept.

The site itself is very cheesy, with the usual garish colours and graphics which goes against decent Web Design in any language! But the
demo of Zeenat Aman crooning "Dum Maro Dum" is itself worth it!! Go fullscreen by double-clicking the video!

(The above link is a high bandwidth one, for the low bandwidth link, click here, and for dial-up here)

And as a bonus, there's Dev Anand himself talking about the movies. Here's his clip on "Kala Pani"! (Didn't strike me that he wears black throughout the movie!)

So, Is this the future of cinema distribution? Well, I certainly think so!

via Slashdot

Update: I downloaded 'Guide' and of course, it's great to watch! Only one quirk though, I need the internet connection to be on to be able to play this! I can live with that! If I figure out a way to convert this to a VCD I'll post the solution here.

Musicplasma

2005-01-17T21:26:00.000-08:00

Musicplasma has been a favourite of mine ever since it came out. I've discovered numerous new artists through it. I key in one of my current favourite artists and then follow the threads across to many other musicians who's music is similar. The links are sometimes logical, sometimes musical, always enjoyable!

Besides just being a great service, it's has one of the best Graphical User Interfaces I've ever seen!

How to tie your shoelaces

2005-01-17T17:21:00.000-08:00

You thought you knew that, did you?

Well, according to Ian's Shoelace Site, there are twenty-two different ways to lace shoes and eleven different ways to tie the knot!

So, next time you're rushing to get ready and you bend down to tie your shoes, maybe you should think "I can do things differently, even when it comes to something as mundane as this!"

via Yahoo Picks for 2004

Signs of Life

2005-01-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

This website lists signs photographed from all over the world! Some of them are downright crazy! (http://signsoflife.goose24.org/)

This one I liked - sign to the 'Gents' and 'Ladies'

2014

2005-01-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

The future, according to some....

Possible? Maybe.

The Little Indian that Will!

2005-01-12T21:11:00.000-08:00

I really didn't believe it until I actually saw the picture. I mean just check this out -

At first I thought - "No way, that can't be Detroit. Maybe they just flew a few guys over to India for a photoshoot!"

But, no! Three guys - Eric Takamura, Joel Jermakian and Anubhav Sethi have formed a company, called New Generation, and are planning to fit these pesky little beasties with an electric motor! I would've thought just fitting a petrol engine would help, because as anyone who has heard one of these can testify, they run on a steam engine!

Well, the whole article seemed like the stuff of myths and legends until a familiar name popped up and made it a great reality - Bajaj Motors. For those not in the know, Bajaj Motors is the largest manufacturer of scooters and three-wheeled autorishaws this side of the north pole. And Bajaj Motors has signed up New Generation to create their new lot of autorikshaws with electric motors.

Here's wishing New Generation the best of luck and here's wishing that this will be the future of urban transportation. All over the world! Actually, I'm superstitious - Three's a lucky number, right? And this thing has three wheels, okay? And then there are these three guys! Wow! What's the chance of that! So three cheers for you folks!!

Read the great article titled The Little Engine that Might at the Washington Post

Thanks to another great gadget blog POPGADGET. (Yes, it's a gadget blog for women. So?)

Now I know why I stay up late! (and hate getting up early!)

2005-01-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Got this one from BoingBoing. A blog called Circadiana and one of the posts being Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sleep (But Were Too Afraid To Ask)

The "owls" have longer periods and "larks" have shorter periods. Period determines phase relationship between the internal clock and the environmental synchronizing cue (e.g., the light-dark cycle), thus longer the period of the clock, later the clock will trigger waking up in the morning or feeling sleepy in the evening, and vice versa. People like me go to bed at 4am and wake up at noon. People with the extreme lark mutation wake up at about 4am, but are real party poopers, snoozing at 7pm or so.

So, I'm an 'owl', eh? I can live with that!

An India to be proud of!

2005-01-08T13:27:00.000-08:00

A quote by Shashi Tharoor, who's the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, United Nations, on Pravasi Bharatiya Divas -

Last year we saw a Muslim President ushering in a Sikh PM, who was led to the position by a catholic. This is the India we can be proud of.

via Rediff News

An interesting article about the economic disparity in India

2005-01-05T20:18:00.000-08:00

Although this article came about because of a piece of news which gained wide publicity in the media both in India and the West, it points out the economic disparity endemic in Indian society. Of late India has been covered quite extensively overseas but anybody who has been there is very surprised at the contrast. In fact, a long time back (before I had been abroad), a friend of mine told me after returning to India - "It's not the culture shock you get when you go abroad. It's the schock you get when you return". Even now, every time I return to India, the contrast hits me full in the face. High rise buildings sit side by side against villages. People travelling in flashy cars while others are still trying to make ends meet. The wealth being earned by a small class of society doesn't seem to be percolating fast or evenly enough.

This article appeared in Wired titled 'India's Odd Couple: Cops and Tech'

A quote from the article -

"The cop who checks your car license does not own a car," said Raghu Raman, who heads an information security firm called Mahindra Special Services Group. "The passport official who checks your passport does not go abroad. The cop to whom you go to register a credit card misuse does not own a credit card. If a cop is in no position to own a computer, how can he fight cybercrime? The field cop (and) the beat constable live in another world."

via Wired News

2005

2005-01-04T09:25:00.000-08:00

You know something, ever since the Tsunami hit, I'm not feeling anything. I mean nothing. My mind's a total blank. I'm not even thinking anything. I thought so many times of writing something, for myself, for my blog. But just a blank. It's not that I've gone numb, or maybe it is. It's not that it feels distant. It's not that it feels as if it happened in another world and why should I care. I've just blanked out emotionally towards that. Usually, when something like this happens, I feel something, sorrow, anger, something. But this time it's really strange. It's like as if the shock, the scale, the whole intensity and immenseness of it is way above my threshold of feeling. It's not that I feel indifferent, it's just that I feel with something like that in front of me, there's really no point in feeling anything. Suddenly, I feel as if I've glimpsed the vastness and power of nature and of the universe and in front of that it's not that I'm helpless - it's just that I'm insignificant. Totally absolutely irrelevant. In the real scale of this world, in the actual scale of things that really matter, I'm not even a statistic.

In the vastness of space and time, humanity is not even a factor of any equation. Did you ever think of that? All the theories and principles of physics make no mention of humanity as a factor. It's as if all those equations always existed and we're just getting glimpses of them and calling them discoveries. We're applauding ourselves and patting each other on the back of having a better understanding of our world, of our universe, but the truth is that it doesn't matter a damn. If tomorrow the whole human race were to be wiped away, nothing would change. Does beauty, esthetics, poetry, song and art hold any room? Does the sun care how beautiful it looks through fogged up mountains? Does the moon care how it looks in the middle of a desert in a pitch black sky? Does Saturn care if we think it's rings are the most miraculous thing in the solar system and that she's always trying to flaunt what she has? Does Jupiter bother about how big a bully we think it is and if we call it's red spot 'angry'?

Does poetry matter? Does art? What about our relationships? And what about our lives?

What about love?

Things we base our whole lives, worlds, universes around. Are they real? Are they material? Things we live for? Things we fight over? Things we feel vain and proud about? All this technology. All this politics. All this creativity. For what? For what?

Nothing at all. Zip, blank, null. Nothing matters. Nothing at all.

People live, die, because that's all that they can do. There's really nothing more is there? It's like a bacteria culture in a petri-dish. That's what the whole thing amounts to. Even worse, maybe. Maybe it's not even an experiment. Maybe there's really no ultimate goal or path. Maybe, at the end of it all it's not important that we know the truth. Maybe it's even worse than that, maybe at the end of it all, the truth itself is irrelevant.

We take pride in our infallibilty. We take pride in being able to predict whether it'll rain tomorrow. Somehow, we think because we understand the Theory of Gravitation, we KNOW where the earth will be ten years from now. And somehow, we think all that knowledge makes us powerful. We don't believe in God anymore, we belive in ourselves. We've become our own Gods. And suddenly, out of the blue, we get this thing hammerred into us - 'No matter how much you know, how much you calculate, how much you believe or how much you care, love and share - you don't matter'

What do you belive in now? Do you belive in God more? Or less? Do you believe in the human intellect more? Or less? Do you believe that the next time we'll be in a better position to prevent a calamity like this? Do you think if the whole world were to focus on keeping itself alive it would help? Do you?

Happy New Year to everyone. Let's all pretend.

Let's all pretend that we're alive. Let's all pretend that every lungful of air we breathe is a miracle. Let's all pretend that the smiles, the laughs and the tears really matter. Let's all pretend that the borders exist. Let's all pretend that the New Year has just begun. Let's all pretend that tomorrow the sun will come up again.

That's all life is about, isn't it? A whole lot of pretensions. Pretensions of excitement, of adventure, of ups and downs, of ecstasy and dispair.

And in the end of it all? What happens when all the pretensions are over? What happens when you close your eyes for the last time and say goodbye to the world you created?

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I'm at a loss of words. I've run out. I want to shed a tear. I want to grieve. I want to feel sorry for all those people. For all those families and children. For all those lives never lived. For all those lives never experienced. For all those lives never pretended. For all those lives which didn't realise what beauty meant. What love is. What music feels like. What art looks like.

What life is.

Yes, it's nothing. But still, it's our creation. It's what we nurture and imagine and form, over time, over years, using our minds as tools. It's what we add colour to, it's what we put tunes into, it's what we put magic in words to move whole peoples by. It's a hug, it's a smile, it's a laughter. It's warm rain on the face, it's cold snowflakes on the tongue. It's the mist in the trees, it's the swaying of the palms, it's the sea roaring in a shell. It's the moon peaking after an eclipse, it's the sun glinting through the rainbow. It's the breeze in the hair, it's the warmth of a hand held. It's a joke shared and a shoulder leaned upon.

Yes, it's all in our heads. But that's all we have.

Here's wishing another year to everyone. Let's share what we have while we have it.

Donations
Tsunami Help Blog - tsunamihelp.blogspot.com
Very good list of aid agencies (Zoo Station)
Om Malik's Tsunami Help Campaign

Others
BoingBoing on Tsunami links

Steve Bass

2004-12-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

I've been a long-time fan of Steve Bass, who writes the "Home Office" column on PC World. In his newsletter to which I subscribe, I came across a Java applet which creates these beautiful pictures.

If you want to subscribe as well, click here. It's worth it!

This one is Grappa White. To make a creation of your own, click the image!

Happy Holidays - what a load of crap!

2004-12-24T08:39:00.000-08:00

If ever society tried to change the mindset of regular, normal people, this has to be it. 'Happy Holidays'? What's that supposed to mean anyway? If you work where I do, holidays are always happy! Including weekends! So, what's the big deal?

In trying to be politically correct, are we losing are awareness of the world around us? Can't we wish Christmas and Id and Diwali and every other festival that we've seen and participated in all our lives, however vicariously? Do we have to always think we end up offending people by wishing them well? Is that ever possible? In our effort to identify ourselves as part of some group, clan or religeon, are we forgetting we're humans?

A couple of days ago a friend of mine wished me for Christmas. I wished him back too. And the amazing thing is that neither of us are Christians! We did the same for Diwali as well. It's part of our lives, it's part of our culture and upbringing and it is indelibly, a part of us.

Yesterday, I was waiting for my bag to be scanned before I entered the office (yes, we're all terrorists here!). There's this huge, hulking guy with a uniform who does this every day. And as guards are supposed to be, he's always been gruff with a dour face. No smiles, nothing. If I'm in a cheerful mood, I try not to think of his response when I wish him Good Morning! Today, out of the blue, he breaks out into this huge smile and puts out his hand for a shake. As I watch my hand disappear and wonder if it'll ever be the same, he pats me on the back and says "Buddy, you have a Happy Christmas, okay?" I wish him too, but I wonder - Wow! Where did that come from? I mean, what's making him so happy and friendly all of a sudden? And then I see his eyes crinkling in that smile of his and I feel happy with him too! "Merry Christmas to you too" I say. And then I realise, it's the season, he's sharing his happiness which he's experienced every year since he's born and he's wishing me well! That's all that matters really. A thought, a wish, a greeting. For another.

So, eschewing the pathetic, unemotional 'Happy Holidays', let me wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Interview with Thomas Barnett

2004-12-22T08:57:00.000-08:00

Worldchanging has published an interview with Prof. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Senior Strategic Researcher at the U.S. Naval War College. He's the author of a new book called "The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century". Makes for very interesting reading, and he does get a few points right!

Now, I should note that it doesn't mean that terrorism comes from one or the other, because terrorism seems to be related less to poverty than to a sense of diminished expectations. It tends to be people who know there's a better life, know they could get a better life because they have the skills and drive, but are prevented from having that better life. Terrorists tend to be middle-class, fairly educated, fairly smart people. Just because people are poor doesn't mean that they'll become terrorists.

As India and China become such big players in the global economy, the old charge that globalization equals Americanization is disappearing. In ten years people are going to see an economy that is as dominated by China, India and Brazil as it is by the EU or US. There are a variety of different rule sets competing here, and the globalization we have today will not be what we have in a decade. But the conflict isn't fought by massed armies on the battlefield, it's fought in huge bureaucratic conferences like the World Trade Organization. That's a positive process.

The complete interview is here

Photographs of Planes!

2004-12-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine sent me this very, very intriguing photograph of two planes looking as if they were practically flying inches from each other!

The explanation behind it goes like this-

A Lufthansa 747-400 and a United 757-200 are on simultaneous landing approaches on the parallel runways 28L and 28R at San Francisco airport.. The distance between the runways is is 225 meters.
Due to the Jumbo being 3 times larger than the 757 and being behind it gives us this fantastic optical illusion of seeming to fly too near together.

I did some digging and came up with this picture of the San Francisco airport which shows the runways in parallel. (Click on the picture for a detaled explanation)

While browsing around I came across another great snap of a plane flight. Enjoy!

A Subway Ride

2004-12-17T21:54:00.000-08:00

Today an amazing thing happened. I saw two people in love! When was the last time you saw something like that? I don't mean adoloscents and teenagers trying to display their affection which in essence is just that, a display. I mean two people who're really jelling together so well that you can see!

As usual I was running late for work and had fast paced to the subway station. Being peak hour at that time of the day, the coaches are never empty. Nevertheless, as soon as the doors opened, I managed to get a seat at the end of the car. The doors slid close with an automated, ever polite, voice firmly going "Stand clear of the closing doors, please". The train trundled along.

As it happens when you commute, you get into the habit of getting into a daze for the required period of time before your stop arrives! Maybe you stare at some ads, maybe you just watch the clock or maybe you just watch the people around you. Either way, your brain goes on self-drive especially if there's the rhythmic swaying of the train.

The train was filled with the usual mix of people for that time of the morning. Mostly people in office clothes. And since this train goes to Wall Street, there was the usual Wall Street crowd. You can spot them anywhere - mostly men, mostly white, in dark suits, like a uniform. Standard ties. Actually, the cost of the ties go up as the age goes up! In winter they also wear dark overcoats. Usually they'll have a 'Wall Street Journal' or a 'New York Times' peeping out of their bags or from under their arms.

At the next stop the doors opened and people piled in again. This couple got in and got a seat directly in front of me. The thing that struck me was that even sitting down, they were holding hands. Well, actually what was strange about seeing those held hands was the age of the couple. They were both in their late forties or so, if not older. And yet they were holding hands! Rarely as one finds this happening, if you watch people usually, they don't hold hands sitting down, even if they had been doing so standing up!

They were both black. The man looked more like a homeless guy. His clothes were dirty as was his jacket. The cap on his head was not too clean either and his grey hair sneaking out of it was practically in dreadlocks. The woman look marginally better. She was fat, but her clothes looked as if she had a job. A little more presentable. Neither seemed like they were from great backgrounds, and seeing their held hands I also noticed that the man's fingernails were grown and dirty.

They were talking. Well, they were smiling and talking to each other. Looking at them chatting, they looked so happy! The contrast with their clothes, appearance and the way they were feeling was very, very vast. I got a bit of their conversation - the woman asked "Where did you sleep last night?"

As they sat and held hands and smiled and chatted, I watched. I couldn't take my eyes away. Their happiness was so complete, so pure, and so... so... wonderful that it was mesmerising. They were in their own bubble, totally complete and content. Amazingly, as I watched them, I started feeling happy too! Not because of any thought that came into my head. Not because it reminded me of something from my own life. I just felt happy watching them! And I realised that I was smiling as well! I looked away thinking it would be very embarassing if they saw me staring and smiling!

The train moved along. My stop was still a couple of stations away. I thought that when I get up to leave, I'd just tell them that they had made my day. But you know how it is. Your social conditioning stops you from speaking to strangers. I was debating within myself. The train stopped. The next station was mine. And then I see these two getting up! I didn't know what to do! They were standing, waiting for the doors to open. My mind was churning out ridiculous consequences. The doors slid open. The couple were waiting for the office crowd to rush out. They were just a foot away. As the gap in front of them cleared and they were going to take a step out into the station I reached up, tapped the man's arm. He looked surprised and turned. "You two are very much in love, aren't you?", I said. "Great", I added. Before they could react, the announcement came through about the doors closing. They stepped out, but before they did, they both smiled at me.

The train started again. I looked around to see if there were others in the train who were like these two. But nope, for everyone else, the train ride was just a means to an end. A chore. Not an event by itself.

I settled back. Nothing had changed. Yet everything looked different.

Making a computer out of LEGO?

2004-12-15T07:59:00.000-08:00

Well, not really!

But "The Goldfish Online" has created a number of logic gates (AND, OR, NOR etc. etc) with LEGO bricks. I know that this doesn't sound very exciting to everyone(!), but I think something like this would be of tremendous use as teaching aids for basic electronics!

I'm sure rudimentary mechanical computing systems can be created. More for the fun of it actually!

Going through the website, I see that a Rubik's cube and a piano have already been created out of of LEGO, and even Charles Babbage's Difference Engine is on the cards! Cool!

PS. As I was going through the Slashdot article, I came across this very interesting software, called TKGate (http://www.tkgate.org/) which can be used to model electronic circuits! And not just model but also simulate! Definitely beats all the soldering!

Microsoft's "India Giving" Campaign

2004-12-14T07:08:00.000-08:00

Microsoft has been doing some phenomenal charity work in India. Their program is called the "India Giving" campaign. This started in 2000 and by this year, 95 percent of Microsoft India employees are involved in donating monies to non-profit organisations. The idea is that each employee gives a certain amount of their monthly salary towards a charity and Microsoft India matches that contribution!

In 2003, Microsoft India gave Rs 3,274,307 to 22 charity and voluntary organisations across the country.

Complete story available at Rediff

Some other great Photoblogs!

2004-12-12T20:20:00.000-08:00

Lake Hut from MUTE (http://mute.rigent.com/)

Shhh from Smudo (http://www.smudo.org)

Fogway from Chromogenic (www.chromogenic.net)

Thanks to Chromasia

Piracy & Stealing (when it comes to Online Music!)

2004-12-11T17:12:00.000-08:00

I've always found the actions of the RIAA in trying to sue their own customers to stop file sharing as ridiculous.

Today I came across this exit exam essay written by Steve Geluso, a 16 year old 'A' student. He decided to choose to write on the distinction between piracy and stealing, when it comes to online music.
(Note the "Continue to Page 2" link at the bottom of the page.)

I don't think anyone ever has put forth the case so eloquently.

A few quotes -

Thieves steal music that is provided in the mainstream and never intend to help the artists out. On the other hand pirates obtain a wide variety of music that is not always provided in ways that are easy to get to

Another radical difference between thieves and pirates is how they get their music. Thieves walk into record stores and take physical copies off the shelves. When a thief takes it from the shelf they are taking something that cost money to produce and stripping the store of its ability to sell it for a profit. Pirates don't take advantage of the already established distribution system. Instead pirates have their own.

If the (music industry) took advantage of the benefits of piracy instead of wasting thousands on frivolous lawsuits they could see themselves launched into a new era of prosperity

What is surprising is that a 16 year old can understand the difference so well compared to an organisation!

Thanks to BoingBoing

US Department of Justice giving Cultural Awareness lessons!

2004-12-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

The US Department of Justice has issued a couple of posters to help authorities in identifying Muslims and Sikhs!! SuperJagjit also created a guideline along the same lines for the South Asian rural community to be able to identify rednecks!!

(Click on the images below to get to the respective PDF files!)

Thanks to BoingBoing!

New York Walking Rules!

2004-12-08T13:41:00.000-08:00

I. Walking Slow
Ever heard of a New York minute? Yes, there is such a thing; it's roughly 45 seconds.

II. Walking on your left
Walking is kind of like driving, you stay to your right. Believe it or not there are lanes; where ever you are, you're supposed to stay to your right.
...
Don't ever stop to ask for directions because no one will give them to you.

III. Stopping
When you stop in the middle of the street you affect everyone around you. People get distracted and you could even cause an accident!
...
And don't bother waiting for the walk sign; if there aren't any cars coming, go! Jaywalking's not really illegalÃ¢Â€Â¦ they just say that.

IV. Walking in Groups
...
However, don't try it past 59th street. There will be a lot of angry people trying to get past your little barricade.

V. Walking and chewing gum at the same time (i.e. Multi-tasking)
Use extreme caution when eating and walking.
...
Cell phones can be distracting too, ..... If your walking in NYC and your not a native, don't attempt it.

VI. Extras
Extra things like bags, kids, (dogs?) and strollers can be dangerous. .... so keep them close to you - especially if you want to keep them.

via College of Mount Saint Vincent students

From the original "New York Times" article Think You Own the Sidewalk? (paid version)

which can be read at The-W

The shape of things to come (on your cellphone)!

2004-12-07T10:42:00.000-08:00

"Rok Sako To Rok Lo" is one of the new movies coming out in India. What makes it a First in the World is that the whole movie is going to be transmitted onto your cellphones (a low resolution version)!

via Gizmodo

This is not funny!

2004-12-06T20:19:00.000-08:00

One of the strange aftermaths of 9-11 is that legally it's becoming difficult to laugh at US airports! Whether it's in the US passports, and now even while you're waiting in line for the security check!!

Is the American sense of humour also a victim of terrorism?

I took this snap while in line at Chicago Midway airport. The text reads,
Attention!
Making any jokes or statements regarding bombs, and/or threats during the screening process may be grounds for both criminal and civil penalties.
All such matters will be taken seriously. We thank you for your restraint in this matter.

Wow! The Balloonman!

2004-12-06T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm sure everyone has had this fantasy as a child! Clutching onto the bunch of balloons which the seller has strapped onto his bicycle so that it would take you away into the blue yonder!!

Well, someone has gone ahead and done just that! He's got an entire website devoted to this!!

Here he is, floating above the clouds!!

Photoblogs

2004-11-28T07:42:00.000-08:00

This is something new I discovered recently. Since nowadays, practically everyone has a digital camera or a cellphone with one, the number of photos out there is going up exponentially!

And that has resulted in something called photoblogs! Basically, the idea is to post something with a photograph.

While reading up about this on the internet I came across this site which called Photoblog.org, which deals with a number of people who post their photographs on a regular basis on the web. If you have RSS you can subscribe to these. (By the way, there are other groups also like Photoblogring.org. Their entire list is here)

My favourite is Chromasia, which is also the top rated in Photoblog.org. (Incidentally, I got to know about Photoblog.org after subscribing to Chromasia!). Chromasia is published by a guy whose snaps make the everyday mundane things look great. The other thing I like about Chromasia is that he gives all the setting of each particular photograph, which is really useful for budding photo enthusiasts.

Here's one of my favourites called "Dried Petals"

The Great Indian Dream!

2004-11-27T20:45:00.000-08:00

India is now getting Europeans to work in its Call Centers!

And check out the perks!
"We live very well. We have a nice guest house. Our schedule is done in a way that we can travel around and do things in our free time. Also, we get picked up and dropped off for work, a privilege we don't have in Sweden. We also get snack coupons."

Wow! Snack coupons!

via Om Malik

Some Recent Happenings in India

2004-11-27T16:40:00.000-08:00

This is more like a news post. I came across these two conferences held in India recently and was pretty amazed, to say the least!

The first one was about the "World Congress of Endourology" which was being held in Mumbai. The 1,500 physicians attending the conference viewed a surgery which was done in Detroit, USA and transmitted real time all the way over! As if this wasn't enough, all this was transmitted in 3-D!!! It was the first time ever that an operation was transmitted around the world in 3-D, which required new transmission standards!. (The news articles are here and here).

(Although this was a great achievement, I couldn't help but chuckle at all those sombre looking physicians wearing those 3-D glasses!!)

The second was even more extreme! It was about the "International Conference on Exploration and Utilization of the Moon", held in Udaipur! (I think that place is the farthest from the moon!) And to top that one of the points of discussion was how to cart Helium 3 from the moon to the earth as it would solve all of earth's energy problems! (Ya, right!)

Amar Chitra Katha

2004-11-27T16:11:00.000-08:00

I always used to think that Amar Chitra Katha has been around for ages. So it was quite a surprise to know that it's only been around for thirty-five years.

Growing up, I had a friend who's Dad who used to subscribe to these comics and I really used to enjoy them. I mean what's there not to like - there were heroes, there were villians, there were superhuman powers and there were gadgets! Coming to think of it, most of my knowledge about Indian mythology is from those comics!

Thinking back though, there was one thing about Amar Chitra Katha - although they used to talk about simpler times, it somehow conveyed to me that morality and ethics was not necessarily easier all those ages ago. They were as conflicting, as confusing as they are today. And one more thing - it used to cover the Indian past in all it's mixed and diversified glory, in all it's form - region, religeon, everything! The scope and the vastness of our history is something unique in the world, I think.

It was great to see the face behind the comics - Anant Pai. And what is even more wonderful is that the entire Ramayana can now be read online!

Via BoingBoing

Mobile Phone Accessories

2004-11-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

Came across a couple of interesting cell phone accessories via Treehugger.

The first is a windup phone charger, which I think is hugely convenient.

The second is a backup device for your phone numbers. Holds 250 numbers. Get a new cell phone and plug this back in to update the address book!

£9.99

Lastly, a bigger version of the previous one, but this stores 500 numbers and also lets you edit the phone numbers!

£14.99

All available at Porta-Charge from UK

Reinventing the Wheel

2004-11-23T21:07:00.000-08:00

Who would've thought that the wheel could be reinvented?

But as Orbital Wheel shows, it can! They've invented the hubless wheel which not only makes the design look sexy, to see the least, but also makes for interesting variations.

Check out these concept motorbike and bicycle...

Also, check out this vehicle which can change it's ground clearance at will! Sure beats the Hummer, what?

Thanks to The Red Ferret Journal

Sulabh International

2004-11-22T22:46:00.000-08:00

Before I begin, some background. Sulabh International builds toilets and bathing facilities. All of the facilities are for the poorer class of society on a pay-per-use basis. Initially, when I came across the Sulabh International website, it brought back a number of memories from Delhi. We always used to make friends, in a deragatory manner, of having been there (Of course, this was to indicate that he's a stink!). Somehow, all those years ago, I never realised the significance of this institution!

Now, when after all these years, when I've seen and experienced struggle. Now, when I know that after all these years of evolution, the only luxuries that anybody would gladly have are running water and fire-on-demand, I've come to appreciate Sulabh a lot more.

Looking at their website, I saw that they have set up an excellent Museum of Toilets! At their website, they even have an Evolution of toilets down the ages. And then I read about the Sulabh Sauchalya, an organic toilet developed by Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak, which not only takes care of basic hygiene for people who can't afford but does it in a completely organic, recyclable way.

And as always, low tech and organic methods always win over high technology in my view.

So, three cheers for Sulabh, and for people who don't think twice about flushing down 11.5 litres of potable water down the drain four or five times a day, let me point you to some other websites like Treehugger and WorldChanging who actively suggest that a more ecological alternative exists.

Mega-Projects of the World

2004-11-21T16:46:00.000-08:00

If you're interested in mega-scale projects, I had written about the "Palm Jebel Ali" and the "Palm Jumeirah" islands earlier (And then man built an island...) These are the two huge man-made islands built in Saudi Arabia.

Today, I came across Tokyo's G-Cans project.

"The G-Cans Project is a massive project, begun 12 years ago, to build infrastructure for preventing overflow of the major rivers and waterways spidering the city (A serious problem for Tokyo during rainy-season and typhoon season). The underground waterway is the largest in the world and sports five 32m diameter, 65m deep concrete containment silos which are connected by 64 kilometers of tunnel sitting 50 meters beneath the surface.

The whole system is powered by 14000 horsepower turbines which can pump 200 tons of water a second into the large outlying Edogawa river."

The whole site is in Japanese, but the pictures are great.

Check out the photo gallery. There is a flash animation here.

Thanks to BoingBoing

Peer-to-Peer between a restricted group (and the RIAA!)

2004-11-20T01:28:00.000-08:00

I've been reading up on this over the last week or so. Got a glimpse of it both at Om's blog and at Slashdot. Slashdot also mentions that DownhillBattle had suggested this as a GAIM plugin.

Basically, the idea is to share whatever files you want over a restricted group. Sort of like a Yahoo! group but for all files, rather than being restricted to just photos or documents. (Does Yahoo! groups allow music files? I never thought of checking!) Of course, Grouper gives you additional capability like IM as well as being able to stream music remotely. I'm sure Yahoo! could get something like this out in a jiffy, if they combine their IM with their Groups!

But there are free alternatives already available! Check K:drive. This allows the same thing that Grouper does for free! So I don't really know why anyone should pay for the priviledge. Besides, with K:drive, you can actually get the files, so, in my opinion, that's an obvious advantage.

But I find the whole thing totally ridiculous to start with! To me, this sounds like just another way that the P2P file sharing is going to go underground (CNET article). This is just like whole companies creating softwares to block pop-up windows or to stop spyware just because Internet Explorer is full of holes or allows it!

Basically, the more P2P file sharing is restricted by RIAA and it's cronies, the more softwares are going to come up to make file sharing 'legal' and then allow the whole thing anyway! I feel like kicking some sense into these guy's heads! When are they going to wizen up? Somebody should whisper into their ears that they aren't just fighting a losing battle, they've lost the whole damn war. The best thing for them to do is to wake up and see the new world that is out there. See the opportunities it provides. See the potential that exists.

First everyone should realise that this 'free music' is not really free, in any sense of the word. Anybody who downloads media, has to pay the ISP, has to buy hard drive space, an MP3 player and maybe a cellphone with customisable ringtones. Besides all this effort, this person has to tag and maybe convert the files, transfer them to different devices by means of USB drives and CDs.

I mean, in which other industry does the customer put in so much effort to enjoy a product? Anything else I buy I expect to work right off the shelf, right? I expect better deals, discount coupons, mail-in rebates. I expect a 100% working product. And if it doesn't work, I will surely go and return it!

And here the RIAA is going against the same consumers who are taking all the effort to get the music on their own, making it listenable and store-able and then enjoy it!

(The other thing of course, is that when RIAA claims they've lost a gazillion dollars to P2P file sharing do they add the cost of all the lawsuits? How much is that costing them?)

Let's say both of us want to share a file, right? A file which neither of us are ever going to modify but are going to use again and again. Now, what makes sense? That both of us keep a copy? Or considering today's scenario of high bandwidths, ubiquitous connectivity and music players in every device possible, we just keep the file in a mutually agreed place and listen to it whenever we feel like it, and, say, pay 5c for that priviledge? So, why doesn't RIAA stay one step ahead and build up the biggest music collection possible, have high speed pipes connected to it, and have everyone pay a really nominal fee (maybe this can be added to the monthly ISP bill!), just the way I'm currently paying for my VoIP? At any instant, I can find any file that I ever want to listen to, and every time I play it, I pay a small charge to RIAA or whoever it is who's maintaining this. That makes way more sense to me.

Other sites like allofmp3 (based in Russia to avoid all the copyright hassles!) are already doing this. You can download a whole CD of songs for less than a dollar! RIAA should smarten up and get whatever money they can rather than have even that go out of the country!

Hacking Vodka!

2004-11-20T01:22:00.000-08:00

In case the title isn't self-explanatory, this fantastic article explains how to make great vodka out of cheap ones!

The short answer - just filter it! About six or seven times. Any regular water filter will do (They used Brita water filter)

These guys used Vladimir Vodka ($11.09 for 1.75 L) whereas what they compared it to was Ketel One ($11.99 for 350 ml!!). Just to confirm I checked one online retailer and Ketel One was listed at $37.05 for the one litre bottle!

And their conclusions? By the sixth filtration, they surpassed even Ketel One's refined taste.

Yes, the obvious questions follow, so read their answers to all the feedback!

Which got me wondering, can we do the same with regular cheap whiskey and turn it into Scotch?!!

India & WIPO

2004-11-19T23:50:00.000-08:00

WIPO is the "World Intellectual Property Organization", one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. They are currently having negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland.

Cory Doctorow, of BoingBoing, is also the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) European Affairs Coordinator. He's been blogging about the goings-on at the WIPO meet.

His blogs have always made interesting reading, but his coverage on the WIPO meet is quite an eye-opener for me.

Suddenly, I realised how much the countries like India, Brazil, Russia, Iran, Chile and Argentina are trying to ensure that their rights are heard clearly in the debates over Intellectual Property. And how much the adminstrators of the meeting, the chair and the secretariat are trying to push through their agenda.

In another few years this is going to affect us all. And this hardly gets in the news!

Charge 2 Go - power up your cellphone with a single AA battery!

2004-11-19T11:06:00.000-08:00

Now, why didn't anyone think of this earlier? Just get the Charge 2 Go and the corresponding connector for your cellphone and whenever you're running low on charge just use an AA battery available anywhere to recharge it!!

Provides -
Up to 3 extra hours of talk time.
Up to 90 hours of standby time.
Up to 120 minutes of charge time.

In the Beginning was the Command Line

2004-11-18T21:26:00.000-08:00

I came across this great story by a guy called Neal Stephenson. He writes books.

This one is called "In the Beginning was the Command Line" and explains very nicely the differences between vague things like Microsoft & Apple!! And from a very different perspective. Although, it's about IT and how the world came to be the way it is with software, hardware, Operating Systems and all that stuff, it is written in very plain english (except for a few lines of HTML code within the first few paragraphs!). But more than that, it's about life, about cultures, about perspectives and about beliefs.

An instance -
"The problem is that once you have done away with the ability to make judgments as to right and wrong, true and false, etc., there's no real culture left. All that remains is clog dancing and macrame. The ability to make judgments, to believe things, is the entire it point of having a culture."

Let me warn you, this is the size of a small book. (When I copied it into Word, it was 59 pages). So, my suggestion is either to take a printout, or to read it in large swathes of time. It's worth it.

Download it here in zip format.

By the way, Neal's website is hugely engrossing!

How to be creative?

2004-11-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

In this lifetime, every once in a while, you wonder, is there somebody else in this world who feels like you do?

And every once in a while, paths cross. At that instant, at that moment, you read something, you hear something and you realise you're not alone.

Today, while wandering in cyberspace, I came across one such person. His name is Hugh, and he writes a blog called GapingVoid.

I liked his cartoons (on the back of business cards, no less!), so I kept reading, and then suddenly out of the blue, I come across this one called "How to be creative"! I didn't know there was a 'How to' for that!

Hmmm. As I read further I realised he's not talking about how to be creative, he's talking about how to be yourself! And yes, that's really the only true creative thing that we can do, isn't it?

A human being is born, lives, dies.
And from the point he's born, there's do this, don't do this...
A little later, there's - why can't you be like...?
And then there's growing up and you think - Will I ever be like....?
And then you grow older, and you realise, I'll never be....

And then it strikes you, to hell with the world, I'm me. That's it. With all that's good, that's bad, that's horrible - THIS IS ME!

And at that very instant, I fell into this Gaping Void!

So, with a high-five to Hugh, here's his tips on "How to be creative"!!

Ignore everybody.
The idea doesn't have to be big. It just has to change the world.
Put the hours in.
If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being "discovered" by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
You are responsible for your own experience.
Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Keep your day job.
Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
Don't try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
Never compare your inside with somebody else's outside.
Dying young is overrated.
The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what
The world is changing.
Merit can be bought. Passion can't.
Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
Sing in your own voice.
The choice of media is irrelevant.
Selling out is harder than it looks.
Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
Worrying about "Commercial vs. Artistic" is a complete waste of time.
Don't worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
You have to find your own schtick.
Write from the heart.
The best way to get approval is not to need it.
Power is never given. Power is taken.

Here's his short version
And the long version (with his wonderful cartoons!)

Incidentally, I just posted one of my favourite pictures from his site on mine. Reflected glory, I think it is called!

Speak in Bengali, Hear in Tamil!

2004-11-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

The Telegraph, one of my favourite newspapers in India, has this great article about real-time translation of conversations over cellphones.

The software is being developed jointly by C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advance Computing), IIT Kanpur and IIIT Mysore. They are expecting the software to be commercially available in three years time!

This has been a holy grail for a many, many years. In the past, all such developments, even simple text-to-speech conversions have been miserable failures as most of the nuances of a language get lost in these translations, including pronunciations of certain words, and the current idiom of the language.

However, a brief note in the article gives me some hope -
“Latency of a second or two will be experienced when the conversation begins since the knowledge has to be extracted from databases. But once the conversation moves ahead, it will become real time."
That points to some intelligent translation rather than brute force!

I hope this succeeds and doesn't go the "Simputer" way, where the product becomes so prohibitively expensive that it becomes useless for the target consumers.

via KurzweilAI.net

Microsoft used an illegal copy of SoundForge 4.5!

2004-11-12T18:46:00.000-08:00

The techies will like this.

Microsoft illegally used Sound Forge 4.5 to ship files along with Windows Media Player!!

Just go to c:\windows\Help\Tours\WindowsMediaPlayer\Audio\Wav\ folder and open any of the wave files there in Notepad. You'll see a lot of vague characters but you can ignore all that. Go to the last line till the end. You'll see the SoundForge 4.5 written there!!

Did I hear Bill saying "Oops"?

via Slashdot

Raindrops on the Window

2004-11-12T16:24:00.000-08:00

It's Friday. A dead day. I leave work early, have some shopping to do. The bus drives up and I get on. Usually I take up a seat next to a window. Today I decide to sit on one of the aisle seats. I recline the seat and look out.

Autumn is well on it's way. Winter's practically set in. It's raining. The sky is heavy with clouds. Just variations of grey. The trees are bare, their branches like claws against the sky. The grass also seemed to have turned colour. Nature has worn her clothes in all shades of brown. My eyes seemed to have got set on 'sepia' mode!

As the bus takes off on the freeway, the scenery moves faster and faster till it becomes a blur. My eyes refocus on something that's happening much nearer. On all the raindrops on the window. All over. Raindrops of different sizes scurrying back. And no two of them follow the same path. As I look I realise that there are many different types of raindrops.

Some, very few, just streak across the window. You can hardly discern the drop. More like a quick stream. As it leaves a wet mark across the window, others just follow the easy path till the end. Over time, the path becomes more streaked and slowly and slowly it gets difficult to even see the path.

Other raindrops go fast as well. As they catch another raindrop waiting, they speed up some more. One thing I noticed that the faster a raindrop travels across the window, the more of itself it leaves behind! Others sometimes catch on to these remnants.

Some raindrops seem big enough to be able to move but seem too lazy. They just wait for one with more energy to come along and drive them. Others are even worse! Despite another drop going through them, they still decide to stay where they are.

I watch this fascinating play of water, sometimes cheering some drops on, sometimes admonishing some for hanging around. Sometimes I focus on only one drop and coax it, but as if to just show it's stubborness, it refuses to move! A couple of times the bus stops at toll booths and this whole drama comes to a standstill. Frozen. Waiting for a cue to begin again. The bus starts and they are back at it again, chasing each other.

I'm nearing New York. The bus emerges from one the numerous tunnels that connect New York, and suddenly there's light and movement everywhere. Outside, there are people walking, rushing, standing in groups together at a stoop and chatting. People stopped at a pedestrian crossing waiting for the light to turn green. Umbrellas everywhere. Everyone raising them up or down as they manoeuvre through the crowd. An unspoken communication. From a distance the sheet of umbrellas look like a wave, bobbing up and down.

I squint my eyes, and the window and the outside worlds merge. I practically see a person in each raindrop. I wonder if there's another window somewhere, and if we'll ever see the view outside that window.

The bus stops. It's Penn Station. The doors open. I step out into the mad throng. I wait for a second and look around at the rain, at the people. Determined faces. Everyone heading somewhere.

I sigh and join the crowd heading for the subway.

India and Innovation

2004-11-11T19:38:00.000-08:00

You might have got those emails. About India's contribution to the rest of the world, be it in mathematics, in astronomy or numerous other fields. Unfortunately, most of these inventions, discoveries and innovations are from Ancient Indian times.

I've always wondered what has been happening since!

It took a few years for me to realise that a number of great things that have happened in India in modern times have not been individual contributions or products & ideas. Most of the creative, innovative things that have happened have been in the social realm.

The first census that happened in independent India was in 1951. The literacy rate in India then was 16.7% and in 1991 it was 43.3%. Why that low even after 40 years? Maybe this number would enlighten: the population of India in 1951 was 361 million, in 1991, 83,606 million! Phew! What happened? Suddenly, after India gained independence, the population exploded! Barring risque comments, the actual reason were primarily due to improved healthcare. The death rate per thousand population has decreased from 26.6 in 1955 to 9 in 2000. Wow! That's a remarkable 66%! What happened here? Increased healthcare for India meant a number of developements in medicine, eradication of major epidemics like malaria, and of course, focus on educational instititutions, both medical and otherwise and better food production and distribution systems.

Somehow, when Indians think, write and criticise about India, they forget the fact that they are able to do so primarily because of a number of social incentives which were taken soon after our independence. If it weren't for institutional education, medical and infrastructural facilities which were created in the early years after independence, I might not have been sitting halfway across the world, writing this blog today.

Although learning these facts was certainly consoling, I was still feeling despondent for a number of reasons. Many, many Indians who are well educated and have travelled all over the world, have been successful outside of India, but there haven't been many success stories of Indians in India.

A recent article, for example, listed 9 Indians in MIT's top innovators' list. Smruti Vidwans has a new approach to develop drugs against tuberculosis and Vikram Sheel Kumar developed interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS.

Of course, neither of them are in India, so I was wondering if it would ever be possible to create Indian greats while in India!

So, it was really heartening to see Wired coming up with a wonderful article about "India Emerges as Innovation Hub".

Two of the notables - Shekar Borgaonkar and his team are building what they call Script Mail, a device that makes electronic communication easier for people who speak languages that can't be typed on a standard keyboard. And Kirti Trivedi, from IIT Mumbai, has built what he calls a "compact media center" for schools without enough computer equipment to go around. Although it costs a steep $3,200, a single unit can tutor a large classroom of nearly 100 students in schools that cannot afford multiple personal computers. Considering tha a computer in India costs over $500, this is certainly a more economical alternative.

Of course, there are many, many things that can be done in India. Things that can be improved. Sometimes the number of hurdles left still to cross seem daunting and it never seems like an achievable goal. But I think, slowly there is a realisation creeping in. That things can change. That we can create, innovate, think up new ways to solve problems which have dogged us for years.

The interesting times are just beginning!

Buy Salwar Kameez over the internet!!

2004-11-09T15:26:00.000-08:00

I couldn't believe this when I saw it! Indian shoppers are selling Salwar Kameez, get this, 'made to your measurements' on the internet!! No, not selling, auctioning!

A customer's even posted a page which tells how to go about doing it! You send in your measurements and they make it exactly the way you want it.

And when I checked at the other items that one of the shopper is selling, the listing starts from Antiques all the way to Sports Memorabilia!

At this rate, eBay will soon leave IMF and WTO in the dust!!

Long live the internet.

via Boing Boing

Dog swallows cellphone! Owner discovers new ringtone!!

2004-11-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

News gets weirder and weirder!

A dog gulped a cellphone and the owner realised it only when he called his phone and his dog's stomach answered!!

The owner was able to get the phone back though (nope, the article doesn't say how!) Maybe he took the dog for a walk to the telephone booth instead of the hydrant!!!

PS. I wonder what would have happened if the phone was on vibrate mode!

via engadget

Replace a microwave with a toaster?

2004-11-09T10:37:00.000-08:00

Maybe for some basic dishes, at least!

This is one of the most innovative ideas I've seen aimed directly at students in hostels and dorms. It's called the "Toastabag"! A bag in which you pop in your leftover stuff to reheat it. They've also managed to cook an omelette in it!! Apparently, you can manage salmon fillets and chops too.

Oh, what I wouldn't give to have this a couple of decades back!!!

via engadget

Do you know Koshy Eapen?

2004-11-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

Do you know Koshy Eapen? I don't. Somewhere in the dim recesses of my memory there is a faint ringing, but nothing beyond that.

Today I get to know that he's been named as the "World's Outstanding Young Person" for 2004. What's that you ask? An award instituted by Junior Chamber International for identifyign young leaders and entrepreneurs. Former awardees have been John F Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Elvis Persley, Linius Torvalds, Jackie Chan and Arjuna Ranatunga.

Koshy has been involved in geriatric care for quite a few years now. For a young India, geriatric care might seem quite low in priority, but the value that elders add to a family has been one that that has been irrefutable. The wisdom, care, love and sensibility that elders have to share is something that balances society at large. As Koshy puts it, most of these are not quantified -
"They contribute by bringing up grandchildren, doing voluntary service, caring for the sick, and often counsel and resolve conflict by virtue of their position. In many cases they are also repositories of knowledge, experience, culture and religious heritage."
(from his interview)

In my life, my grandparent's have been a tremendous influence. On their behalf, and for the elderly everywhere, here's wishing the best to Koshy.

'Creep' by Radiohead

2004-11-05T19:34:00.000-08:00

If you've heard this song, you know how great it is.

Came across an excellent flash animation of it. Potrayed the song well I thought!

thanks to little.yellow.different

Was the whole thing a conspiracy?

2004-11-04T15:06:00.000-08:00

Was it a facade? Was it just eyewash? That's another thought that comes into my head - Is it possible that everything was just a charade?

First the fact that of all the Democratic leaders, the weakest, the least impressive candidate was the one who ended up opposing Bush. 'Lamb to the slaughter' one could say! Isn't that something? I mean, can you think of any weaker Democratic candidate? Well, I'm sure it'll come down to the point of who had the most money. But if that were the case, then wouldn't the Democrats make a special effort of making sure that the strongest leader wins by backing that guy up financially? This, in itself, sounds like a kind of cop-out to me.

Then there were the rumours of the 'Skull & Bones Club'. Both Bush & Kerry are members of this club and even to this date refuse to disclose anything about their association with this club. There were many write-up that came up when the 'Skull & Bones' connection was unearthed, but somehow things quietened down afterwards. The surprising part is that none of the other candidates were members of this exclusive club. (Here's a direct link to the BBC Radio 4 audio)

I see shades of 'The Da Vinci Code' here. Could it be the whole populace is getting fooled into this huge sham?

The other thing that strikes me is that considering most of the media is corporate controlled, could it be that the whole media was manipulated and subverted? It happened earlier when support was required for going into war in Iraq. Because while watching the vote counting the evening of the 2nd, all that was being shown was all these predictions, and I kept on wondering why they needed to predict when the results would be out in a couple of hours?

And finally, Kerry conceded! I thought that strange. I mean once someone concedes do they stop counting the votes? What's the point after that? And why would someone concede before all the counting is done? Isn't that disrespectful to all the people who came out to vote?

And then there's Diebold! Here's quoting from Boing Boing -

In a fall 2003 fundraising letter sent to Republicans, from Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell: "I am committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."

This was even quoted in CNN, CBS among other places.

Isn't that, like, a slip? Something that shouldn't have come out at all? If Ohio was the clincher, and the e-voting machines company is based in Ohio, and the CEO of that company has made a statement like that, wouldn't that be enough reason NOT to use those same voting mchines for that particular state?

I don't know about anyone else, but I smell something rotten here!

Thanks to Boing Boing

A new use for Colas!!

2004-11-04T11:46:00.000-08:00

I've got to try this out, especially since I don't have a green thumb (even cactii die under my care!!).

Farmers in Chhattisgarh are using Pepsi & Coca Cola in lieu of pesticides! BBC has more details in this report. Farmers are saying that regular pesticides costs Rs. 70 an acre whereas cola mixed with water works out Rs 10 to 15 an acre! Sales of colas in rural areas have been increasing. Pepsi and Coke are saying there's nothing in their drinks that can be used for pest control!! (Ya, right!)

So, the next time you take a bite of food and admire it's taste say a quite thanks to those coke companies!!!

(Yup, you guessed it. Pepsi isn't my favourite!)

via Near Near Future

Ok, we're past it. And we're back to being funny!

2004-11-03T18:35:00.000-08:00

Came across this amazing article from Harper's Magazine, truly hilarious!

Excerpts:

So the wrong candidate has won, and you want to leave the country. Let us consider your options. (Read more...)

via Boing Boing

The more things change, the more they remain the same...

2004-11-03T17:18:00.000-08:00

Wrong. Wrong. All wrong.

Is this the way America's supposed to go?

Along with a whole bunch of Americans, myself, though not one, do feel disappointed.

But it is just a moment in history, isn't it? In the larger scheme of things, will this actually matter?

My mind reels between dire futures, where flames of war burn in more places. Sometimes, it feels that fifty years from now, people will look back at 2004 as the tipping point for the US of A.

At other times I think that maybe things will change. The reasons why the Republican party began will shine through once more. But I wonder, with a majority in the Senate whether that would actually happen or whether it will polarize this country and the world even more.

In closing, let me quote from this great article from WorldChanging:

The US President, despite the brou-ha-ha of the last two years, does not run the world. The US President is just a very powerful player. The President is just someone who makes important decisions that change the context for the long-term work of innovation, diffusion, and transformation -- the creation of a world that can work for everybody, and nature, over generations. The Great Work, as geologian Thomas Berry called it.

And you know what?

So are you.

Anil's Political Post

2004-11-02T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is the best post I've seen on the elections till now.

I think Anil has potrayed every thinking person's frustration adequately...

Excerpts...
And the worst thing about the candidates? They're fucking lazy. Nobody said to me "Vote for me because I'm most able to work with people in the opposite party who have good ideas, and that's how we make progress."

And by the time the whole process has finished, most dumb, loud Americans will go back to hating their counterparts in the other party more than they hate Osama Bin Laden. The other 80% of us will shake our heads, be glad it's over, and get back to work.

Thanks, Anil. All I can add is that you are echoing the feelings of people all over the world.

Most of the people might be having a good laugh at the numerous animations floating around. But underneath that, we're also shaking our heads in disbelief.

I've seen the future...

2004-10-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

Ok, I've been hearing that Republicans should be thanked for India's prosperity for some reason! I agree that Republicans might be pro corporations but I think both offshoring & India's prosperity couldn't have happened only in the last four years now, could it? Tata Consultancy Services started offshoring way back in 1968! So, I think the political party at the helm didn't have much to do with it. I feel corporations focus on lowering operating costs was the reason.

Also, one shouldn't confuse outsourcing with offshoring. These are two different animals entirely.

Anyways, here's my prophecy -

1. Kerry will win.

2. In terms of the Iraq war, Kerry will start pulling troops out and stop putting in good money after bad. UN will be asked to step in and get the Iraqi people involved in governing their own country whether it's by a central government or through a coalition of the warlords in the different regions.

3. Afghanistan will be more in focus as Kerry will still be trying to get Osama.

4. Overall economy will start rebounding for a number of reasons. First, investors will show a little more trust in the economy. Second, the perception that American jobs stay in America will get reinforced. Not because outsourcing will be reduced though.

5. Outsourcing companies, both Indian and others, will simply start hiring more Americans, and try to operate at lower costs (smaller cubicles maybe?). However, outsourcing as a phenomenon will continue.

6. Offsoring will also slowly gain new meaning as other companies start setting up branches in countries closer to America e.g. Mexico & Canada. This will reduce time zone differences as well as give the benefit of lower costs.

7. Important Note: Outsourcing & Offshoring will happen more for the growth of the company rather than acting as replacement of current infrastructures. For example, if a call center is to be added, it might get added in Canada or Mexico, staffed by Indians rather than getting sent across to halfway around the globe.

8. Additional tasks will start getting outsourced from companies. Business Process Outsourcing will gain a broader & broader definition. (Well, if the US Army can outsource it's tasks then why can't corporations!)

9. Prosperities of countries like Brazil, India, China & Russia will continue to grow. Innovative solutions out of these countries will help them in becoming more global players than they have been in the past.

10. Globally, copyright will stop being the bugbear that it is today. Linux will rule, as will region free DVD players!

11. Increasing bandwidth availability will cut down telecommunication costs drastically. This will have more profound implications than what can be imagined currently. Media will get shared more and more rather than getting copied. After all, how many radio stations do you actually tape? The reason being that radio is ubiquitous. (A handheld recordable satellite radio is just the tip of the iceberg!) The same thing is going to happen to media. Both video and audio is going to get streamed rather than being consumed in packages. Charges will drastically reduce as both distribution & marketing costs go down.

12. Marketing will gain a new meaning through social networking software. Currently, this path of marketing is hardly utilised. Imagine hiring someone for chatting about Matrix Part IV in a chat room!

13. Google and other independant search engines will gain more importance. As will lesser known and more obscure audio & video which have not been marketed as heavily as the best sellers.

Thirteen seems like a good number, so I'll stop there! (And keep my fingers crossed!!)

Make your own potrait!

2004-10-29T20:25:00.000-07:00

I discovered this website where you create a potrait of yourself! Fun stuff!!

Check out my potrait! Not that you'll recognise me on the streets with that, but all the same quite a close likeness I'd like to think. What with the cigarette and all!

Cool, eh?

Thanks to Russell Beattie for this one. He publishes an interesting blog by the way. He's also a night person, and finds it a waste to wake up early in the morning!! Maybe I'll meet him some day!

Anti Magnet!!

2004-10-29T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ahem!!

No comment here. I think it's self-explanatory!

And then man built an island...

2004-10-27T14:36:00.003-07:00

Will the blue planet finally become a brown one?

Here's an article on the two artificial islands created off the coast of Dubai - the "Palm, Jebel Ali" and the "Palm Jumeirah".

And you thought only white collar jobs are disappearing?

2004-10-27T13:46:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting Slashdot article.

Apparently it's called 'Medical Tourism'!

The complete Washington Post article is here. The article itself is a very good read.

Well, to give a brief personal experience - When I had to get a tooth capped, I was suggested by an American colleage to hop over the border at Nogales, Arizona to Mexico, since the costs are cheaper there! Everyone in her family used to choose that option rather than pay the exorbitant charges here in the US.

So when I went to India on vacation, I decided to get it done there. In dollar terms, it cost me 100 bucks. In terms of time, a couple of days compared to two weeks here. Both were, needless to say, way, way lesser than what it would have cost me here.

So, my question is - besides the basic cost (and yes, I know the cost of living is lower in Mexico & India), what are the other costs that are getting added to the bill? And why are Americans keeping quiet about it? If the system needs changing shouldn't someone take the initiative? This is capitalism after all. If my widget is cheaper than yours, then wouldn't everyone buy it?

Sexed Text

2004-10-27T13:26:00.000-07:00

This appeared some time ago in The New York Times, but worth having a look at again...

A new computer program can tell whether a book was written by a man or a woman. The simple scan of key words and syntax is around 80% accurate on both fiction and non-fiction. The program's success seems to confirm the stereotypical perception of differences in male and female language use. Crudely put, men talk more about objects, and women more about relationships.

Female writers use more pronouns (I, you, she, their, myself), say the program's developers, Moshe Koppel of Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, and colleagues. Males prefer words that identify or determine nouns (a, the, that) and words that quantify them (one, two, more).

You can read the article here

And if you don't believe it works, try this page.

You can put in (copy/paste) any text you feel like and the analysis is quite straightforward! Of course, the bigger the amount of text, the more correctly it can do it's job!!!

And this one on Mathematics...

2004-10-27T11:57:00.000-07:00

It's called the Cut-the-knot.org

I like the great way they put mathematics across using simple Java applets. Some of them are quite interesting games actually!

Here's one called The Towers of Hanoi. I remember having played this when young. Broght back some nice memories.

I guess when you're older you start appreciating what all the mathematics teacher were trying their damndest to teach you then!! No matter how painful it was to sit through a blackboard full of numbers & symbols which didn't seem to have any relevance with reality!

(via the Wired Blog)

Excellent website of Black & White snaps

2004-10-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

Came across this fantastic website of Black & White snaps of New York called www.NYCLondon.com

Here's one of the great pictures.

Will the little guys rule the world?

2004-10-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

This is a question that popped into my mind recently.

Before coming to US, I was truly enamoured by this idea of a nation built on one simple word, 'freedom'. I think of all things, that is the key to the success of the Unites States. Freedom to think, freedom to innovate, freedom to succeed. However normal this seems to Americans, these things are not necessarily taken for granted in many places around the world. In most countries, 'culture' is a big hurdle to overcome in both personal and professional lives. It is conveniently forgotten that culture is not static, but a living, breathing entity.

Things changed a bit after coming here. I realised that what started the nation and what continued till about middle to late of the last century, has somehow been ransacked. Big corporations and big companies hold a lot of freedoms to ransom. And what is ironical is that those companies actually came into being because of the freedoms that US gave them! But now that they are the big chaps, they try and throttle innovation and control creativity. Microsoft is of course a prime example. But there are others. The music and movie industry (and their arm the RIAA) also comes to mind. As does the big telecom giants. As does the legal system.

But of late, I notice something strange. Fuelled by technology & connectivity, a number of things seem to happening parallely, and I see a kind of pattern.

1. Linux is easily the first choice. The 'other' Operating System. Which has taken over people's minds and also PCs in developing nations. And most of it built by people volunteering!

2. Music and movies, both their production and distribution, have been taken over by everyone! A surge in indie movies, a surge in music, original and remixed, and the increasing amount of file sharing is changing the scene forever. Add to that the homebrew FM stations!

3. 'Hackers' and innovators are appearing everywhere. They build and transform on the things that are being produced by these mega corporations. And in the process improving on things as they stand. Witness Greg Hughes add a 5 GB microdrive hacked from an mp3 player into his digital camera! (via Engadget). Or people building their own PCs!

4. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) companies like Packet8 and Vonage are giving the Bells a run for their money and winning.

5. Lawrence Lessig and the Creative Commons is turning the definition of copyright on it's head to benefit the ideas of people, regular people, not corporations.

Today, I read an article, posted by Om Malik, about rural broadband. The article quoted Carlini's observation about how broadband in non-major cities is essential. Om says "... in this new connected economy, the jobs flow to the lowest cost destination, just as money used to flow where ever it could seek highest return." Couldn't agree with that more.

And to that I'd like to add this - As people have freedom to think, to share, to learn, they will create value. In other words,

"Ideas will flow where there is the most freedom"

Politics, Cricket and a by-two chai

2004-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

In India, politics replaces all other forms of entertainment. Well, except during the cricket season. At that time, even the politicians take a break from their mudslinging and sit in front of the tv.

So, it was not surprising to get into humungous political debates over the US elections, US foreign policy, Iraq, Bush's links (to everything mid-eastern!) and the future of US in world affairs, with my friends here in New York.

And then I wonder if I've had such vehement arguments over politics in India?

Well yes I have, most often about BJP/RSS and their veiled Hindutva agenda, sometimes over Pakistan, sometimes over the "new" Nuclear World and sometimes over US foreign policy. But for whatever reason, although politics is such a mainstay of newspapers back in India, it has never been so "in your face" as it has been here. After we've had our share of arguments and debates, we always have a "by-two chai", smoke a few cigarettes, and ask each other - "So what else is new?" And if things get too heated, there will always be someone coming over from the next table and saying "Take it easy guys!" or the ubiquitous "Relax!"

I've been thinking over this for some time now, how in the US you have to have a stand. And the stand is always 'for' or 'against'. Like you're either for abortion or against it. You're either for gay marriage or against it. You're either for the war or against it. You're either a Democrat or a Republican. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground in America!! And the funny part is you're expected to stay that way for the rest of your life!!

In India, we can let issues affect our lives only so much. After that, you've got to get up and move on! You've got to make a living, you've got buy some food, you've got to go back home because you're wife's waiting. I mean there's always so much to get done just to live that we can't afford to let issues rule our lives. Also, sooner or later, someone points out the ridiculousness of the whole thing and everyone cracks up! Until the next time, that is!

When I read the Wired article on "The New American Idol", one thing that caught my eye was the quote "It's the third way, Stupid". That's true, in life as in everywhere else. The idea is to make democracy work. The idea is to make the legal system work. The idea is to make life work. And invariably, there'll be things outside your control which will keep throwing spanners in your works. But you can't afford to stop and take a stand. If you get a spanner, take it out and look for nuts to tighten! And work around things! I guess that's why Indians are usually called unflappable.

At the end of the day, if you can have a hearty meal, enjoy the company of good friends, and when you lay your head on your pillow, think about a wonderful day spent rather than the things to do tomorrow, that's life well spent, isn't it?

PS. In case you're still wondering what a "by-two chai" is, I can't help you. You've got to go to Bangalore.

Advances in Space

2004-09-28T18:21:00.000-07:00

Over the last week and this week, there have been a few developments on the space front.

First, India launched the World's first education satellite. And then India advanced it's Lunar Mission Launch to 2007.

And just after, Sir Richard Branson launches "Virgin Galactic" (virgingalactic.com). He's licensing the technology from the Ansari X-Prize hot favourite, Burt Rutan's SpaceShipOne. Flight bookings have begun, and will begin 2007 costing anything between $170,000 to $200,000. Peanuts compared to what it costs nowadays!!

And finally, this Wednesday (29th September, 2004), Burt Rutan makes the official trip to try and win the X-Prize. If anyone stays near the Mojave Desert, don't miss it.

The final frontier is getting closer!

Happy Birthday Taj Mahal

2004-09-28T17:10:00.000-07:00

Today, the Taj Mahal celebrates 350 years of it's creation.

The first time I saw the Taj Mahal I was too young. I hardly got to appreciate it! The next time I saw it was a few years ago during my India bike trip.

This time it was an experience which I will never forget.

The thing that hits you when you see the Taj Mahal is the absolute, perfect purity of it. The symmetry gets to me. It's amazing, every notch, every pillar, every etch seems to be the same on both sides of the axis. And then there's the whiteness of it. It's ethereal. As if it appeared there fully formed. It's beyond my comprehension how human hands could have created something so, so, so... flawless.

In these days of bugs, viruses, trojans, terror attacks and airport security checks, that there is something on this earth which shows what humans are capable of, is what in itself makes a visit to the Taj Mahal worthwhile. But what I enjoyed the most was just sitting on that wonderful green grass, in that bright sunshine, facing this creation and letting it sweep me over with calm, peace and tranquility. It could only have been built for love.

Happy Birthday.

(The Guardian has this wonderful article on the Taj Mahal. Don't miss it.)

What's happening to America?

2004-09-23T20:07:00.000-07:00

What's going on? How come two hundred odd years later, the basic principles which America stood for, indeed, got created with, are disappearing? Free speech, free and unfettered enterprise, innovation, ingenuity? Why are all these getting quashed?

The very basis which founded America - competition, hard work, finding new solutions to problems, where have they gone? Why is there legal issues at every turn? Why are kids getting sued for listening to music? Why is free speech being used to allow all kinds of advertisements on the internet? Why is junk mail being discussed in the government?

Ever since this nation began, it has believed that hard work and keen brains will always succeed. And people have succeeded. The 'American Dream' meant something. But now, those same people have become so big that they kill competition, lobby for ineffectual standards, stick to old technology.

Technology, (at one time it used to be called Engineering!), which brought this country to where it is today, is moving away. Om Malik has been pointing out that the axis of technology has shifted over the China Sea. And now I read that BBC is putting it's entire audio video archive on the internet to be downloaded, shared and built upon by anyone and everyone. And they're doing this with the help of Lawrence Lessig, an American of Creative Commons fame, who has been questioning copyright laws in this country for years now. Are American ideas getting accepted faster abroad now?

When most of the word is going 3G services in cellular, America is just catching up. When the rest of the world is beginning to enjoy ever faster internet speeds on their cell phones compared to dial up, statistics of broadband use of 42% in the US is making everyone feel proud. When even developing countries like India are getting ready to set up Internet TV, there isn't even a whiff of it in the horizon here.

Something is seriously amiss.

I believe Capitalism is showing it's age. Hard work and brains are required when you're starting something. But when the machinery has gotten running you need a different set of skills to make it run. You only need to mend those small things that break from time to time, and slowly over the years a new machine emerges. But if you don't replace the parts which fall off with newer parts, sooner or later the whole monolith becomes too costly to run.

Law, which any civilised society uses to prevent it's citizens from undue harassment and to entitle people their rights, is being used for exactly the opposite! Two years ago, I read a book by Philip Howard called "The Collapse of the Common Good: How America's Lawsuit Culture Undermines Our Freedom" and "The Fine Art of Drawing the Line". Philip is a lawyer in New York who argues how law is getting abused in America. An example - there isn't a single see-saw or a blade of grass in children's playgrounds in America. How did it come to this?

The world is changing. It's people are changing. People are becoming more aware, informed, are able to make more intelligent choices than earlier. And it will not match with what worked last century, last decade and sometimes even last year.

Marriages, which one time meant a lifetime relationship, is not the same anymore. Many people are deciding to share their lives together without getting married. Europe has been changing it's laws to reflect the changes happening in society, and here we're fighting over the issue of gay marriage? To the point that it's being debated as an election vote earner?

With elections looming up, attacks and counter-attacks on the veracity of military careers are going back and forth. What about the number of military careers getting extinguished everyday in Iraq? (And is anybody keeping count in Afghanistan any more?, or is public memory so short that we've forgotten who caused the 9/11 attacks?). And all this not counting the thousands of civilians. Would America love another country with so much blood on their hands?

And someone, somewhere is making a bunch of money out of all this. And all in the name of freedom, in the name of democracy, in the name of security. That is what galls me. Over the last couple of years, security has become the biggest industry in the US. In the midst of everyday people trying to eke a living, some people have forgotten to feel. To feel for the people dying in the war everyday. To feel for the people who have been earning their whole lives to live their retirement in peace, and now they are not even being allowed that. Is there no stopping greed? Does money always have to be the bottom line?

Two hundred years ago, Thomas Paine said, "The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind". This is the reason, however much anyone resents it, is why the rest of the world has looked up at America. Unfortunately, that mantle is slowly getting vacant. Other countries are showing the way.

Today, Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, gave a speech at the UN. He addressed this speech to the President of the United States. He said -
"If we look around us, the single most defining characteristic of our contemporary world is the global, transnational character of the challenges we confront, whether these are in the realm of international security or development."

"We speak about cooperation, but seem hesitant to commit ourselves to a global offensive to root out terrorism, with the pooling of resources, exchange of information, sharing of intelligence, and the unambiguous unity of purpose required. This must change."

The torch of democracy, of freedom, of a respectable life for all is not getting extinguished. The fire is spreading. Other countries are leapfrogging into development. Encouraging growth, innovation, invention and ingenuity.

America cannot give up what it started.

If anything, the fire has to burn brighter here.

This is my wish.

On Education & Schooling

2004-09-17T17:54:00.000-07:00

The Underground History of American Education is a book by John Taylor Gatto, who's a former New York City school teacher. During his 30-year career, he has taught at 5 different public schools, has had his teaching license suspended twice for insubordination, and was once covertly terminated while on medical leave. He has also won the New York City Teacher of the Year award three times and the New York State Teacher of the Year award once during the final year of his career. The whole time he has been an outspoken critic of the school system. Nine years after leaving his career, he published "The Underground History of American Education". Here he put's his version of what's wrong with American schooling.

His verdict is not what you'd expect: the school system cannot be fixed, because it has been designed not to educate.

The full text of the book is available online here.

There are links on top which take you to different sections of the book. The book is big, especially to read online. I'm looking for a PDF version which I can download, haven't found one yet.

Although it talks about the American system of schooling, I think it's important reading for everybody. I've just started with the Prologue and that itself is very, very interesting. One of his quotes "We don’t need a national curriculum or national testing system". Some of the things will ring true for a lot of us having done schooling in India.

In the past, I've always resented how Tata Consultancy Services and other software organisations have refused to interview graduates of non-engineering disciplines. This categorisation doesn't make any sense, except to the Visa authorities as they insist on 12+4 years of education like in their own countries. But instead of questioning the bigger issue, I think a lot of institutions in India miss a lot of good talent.

A friend of mine, Balu, & myself have had many, many discussions over the current school system in India and the kind of pressure it creates on the students. Balu, of course, has his own form of teaching which is quite revolutionary, to say the least. Additionally, both of us are totally against this universal system of awarding numbers to students as if children could be represented by just digits, that too within a finite range.

This system seems to carry on to the job scenario as well. Every year, during the aprraisal process, this is something which I have to go through with the rest of the team much to my immense discomfort at the system itself!

The tragic part is there doesn't seem to be any middle ground - you either accept the system or you're an outcast! Ridiculous! John Gotto addresses a number of these issues in his book. Hopefully, I'll be able to go through some of it to learn something useful!

So this is how it is done!

2004-09-16T18:48:00.000-07:00

The simplest way to fold your t-shirt! (1.5 MB Video)

Interview with Thomas Friedman

2004-09-15T22:58:00.000-07:00

There is this very interesting interview with Thomas L Friedman, who's the author of a book called 'The Lexus & the Olive Tree' over at Rediff.

As a background, Friedman went over to India to see what this big hullabaloo on outsourcing was all about. He's now what we call a convert!!

Anyway, of all the nice things he said about India, this is what I liked best -

"I'll tell you what I'm impressed with by India. India has its hardcore olive tree people, hardcore nationalists, some of them are in power now. But here's what I feel: your success in globalization is really a function of your success at glocalization, your ability to take the best from the world's systems, best practices, best ideas, best brands, and meld them with your own culture in a balanced way so that you don't feel overwhelmed by them.

What impresses me about India is its ability, its innate ability, to glocalize. It's not so easy. But to take the very best practices of the world system, absorb them, and yet, you go to India and you feel you are in India! People are eating curry, daughters-in-law are living with their mothers-in-law, marriages are being arranged, and women are wearing saris! You know, you don't go there and feel -- at least I don't -- 'O God, globalization has really wiped out Indian culture!' Not at all. I feel Indian culture is extremely robust, has been able to absorb these things and find a kind of balance."

The complete interview is available here.

And you thought you knew English?

2004-09-12T01:47:00.000-07:00

Picked this up from Om Malik. This is a comprehensive list (I think!) of words being used for SMS. The PDF can be downloaded here.

How many can you guess without seeing the expansion?

And to think it's available in other languages as well! Which means I have to learn two scripts for every language I know!!

1	One; Won; Want
2	To; Too
4	For
8	Ate
2DAY	Today
2MORO	Tomorrow
2NITE	Tonight
2U2	To You, Too
3SUM	Threesome
@	At
AAMOF	As A Matter Of Fact
AFAIC	As Far As IÃ¢Â€Â™m Concerned
AFAICT	As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK	As Far As I Know
AFK	Away From Keyboard
AIM	AOL IM
ASAP	As Soon As Possible
ASL	Age, Sex, Location
ATB	All The Best
ATM	At The Moment
AYT	Are You There?
B	Be
B4	Before
BAK	Back At Keyboard
BBFN	Bye-Bye For Now
BBL	Be Back Late(r)
BCNU	Be Seeing You
BITMT	But In The Meantime
BOT	Back On Topic
BRB	Be Right Back
BTW	By The Way
BYO	Bring Your Own
C	See
C4N	Ciao For Now
CN	Can
CRS	CanÃ¢Â€Â™t Remember Ã¢Â€ÂœStuffÃ¢Â€Â
CU	See You
CUL(8R)	See You Later
CUZ	Because
CWOT	Complete Waste Of Time
CYA	See Ya
D	The
DAT	That
DIS	This
DITYID	Did I Tell You IÃ¢Â€Â™m Distressed?
DIY	Do It Yourself
EOD	End Of Discussion
EOM	End Of Message
ETA	Estimated Time Of Arrival
EVRY	Every
EZ	Easy
F	Female; If
F2F	Face-To-Face
F2T	Free To Talk
FAQ	Frequently Asked Question
FBOW	For Better Or Worse
FOAF	Friend-Of-A-Friend
FOCL	Falling Off Chair Laughing
FST(R)	Fast(er)
FUCHA	Future
FWIW	For What ItÃ¢Â€Â™s Worth
FYA	For Your Amusement
FYI	For Your Information
GA	Go Ahead
GAL	Get A Life
GBTW	Get Back To Work
GFC	Going For Coffee
GFETE	Grinning From Ear To Ear
GMTA	Great Minds Think Alike
GR&D	Grinning, Running & Ducking
GR8	Great
GTG	Got To Go
GTGTTBR	Got To Go To The Bathroom
GTRM	Going To Read Mail
H8	Hate
HAND	Have A Nice Day
HHOK	Ha-Ha Only Kidding
HRE	Here
HSIK	How Should I Know?
HTH	Hope This Helps
IAC	In Any Case
IAE	In Any Event
IANAL	IÃ¢Â€Â™m Not A Lawyer, But
IC	I See
ICQ	I Seek You
IDGI	I DonÃ¢Â€Â™t Get It
ILUVU	I Love You
IMCO	In My Considered Opinion
IMHO	In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO	In My Not So Humble Opinion
IMO	In My Opinion
IMPE	In My Previous/Personal Experience
IMVHO	In My Very Humble Opinion
IOW	In Other Words
IRL	In Real Life
ISP	Internet Service Provider
IYKWIM	If You Know What I Mean
J/K	Just Kidding
JIC	Just In Case
JK	Just Kidding
K	OK
KISS	Keep It Simple, Stupid
KIT	Keep In Touch
KWIM	Know What I Mean
L8R	Later
LD	Later, Dude
LERN	Learn
LMHO	Laughing My Head Off
LOL	Lots Of Luck; Laughing Out Loud
LTNS	Long Time No See
M	Male; Am
M8	Mate/Boyfriend/Girlfriend
MOB	Mobile
MSG	Message
MSGN	Messaging
MTCW	My Two Cents Worth
MYOB	Mind Your Own Business
N	And; In
NA	Not Applicable
NE	Any
NE1	Anyone
NO1	No One
NOS	Knows
NOYB	None Of Your Business
NRN	No Reply Necessary
NTA	Enter
NXT	Next
O	Oh
OIC	Oh, I See
OLL	Online Love
ONNA	Oh No, Not Again!
OTF	On The Floor
OTOH	On The Other Hand
OTTOMH	Off The Top Of My Head
PCM	Please Call Me
PLS	Please
POV	Point Of View
PPL	People
PREDIKZ	Predicts
PS	Postscript
PU	That Stinks!
R	Are
RECOGNIZ	Recognize
REHI	Hello Again (Re-Hi!)
ROFL	Rolling On Floor Laughing
ROTF(L)	Rolling On The Floor (Laughing)
RSN	Real Soon Now
RTDOX	Read The Documentation/Directions
RTFM	Read The FrickinÃ¢Â€Â™ Manual
RUOK	Are You OK?
S	Is
SA	Say
SIT	Stay In Touch
SMS	Short Message Service
SNAFU	Situation Normal, All Fouled Up
SO	Significant Other
SOL	Sooner Or Later; Ã¢Â€ÂœStuffÃ¢Â€Â Out Of Luck
SOM1	Someone
SPAM	Unwanted E-Mail
SPK	Speak
SRO	Standing Room Only
TAFN	ThatÃ¢Â€Â™s All For Now
TANSTAAFL	There AinÃ¢Â€Â™t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch
TEOTWAWKI	The End Of The World As We Know It
THINKN	Thinking
THKQ	Thank You
THX	Thanks
TIA	Thanks In Advance
TKS	Thanks
TLK2UL8R	Talk To You Later
TMK	To My Knowledge
TNX	Thanks
TOS	Terms Of Service
TPTB	The Powers That Be
TSWC	Tell Someone Who Cares
TTBOMK	To The Best Of My Knowledge
TTFN	Ta-Ta For Now
TTY	Talk To You
TTYL(8R)	Talk To You Later
TWIMC	To Whom It May Concern
TX(S)	Thanks
TXT	Text
TYM	Time
TYP	Type
U	You
U2	You, Too
UR	YouÃ¢Â€Â™re
URL	Web Page Address
W/	With
W/B	Welcome Back
W/O	Without
WAN2	Want To?
WAN2TLK	Want To Talk?
WAT	What
WKND	Weekend
WRD(S)	Word(s)
WRT	With Regard To
WTG	Way To Go
WU	WhatÃ¢Â€Â™s Up?
WWW	World Wide Web
WYSIWYG	What You See Is What You Get
X	Kiss
XLNT	Excellent
XOXOX	Hugs And Kisses
XPERENS	Experience
Y	Why
Y2K	Year 2000
YGIAGAM	Your Guess Is As Good As Mine
YGWYPF	You Get What You Pay For
YMMV	Your Mileage May Vary
YR	Your
ZZZ	Sleeping

Why do we get a sound when we crack our knuckles?

2004-09-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

I've been wondering about this a long time and someone had told me the answer but I had forgotten, so today I decided to look it up!!

Basically, because we stretch our fingers, our joints get seperated and the liquid between the joints gets stretched too. And as the liquid gets stretched, which is equivalent of reducing pressure, (think of a water filled syringe which is sealed at the tip, and pulling the plunger out), the air dissolved within the water starts forming bubbles and pops out of the surface. This is what makes the noise.

Additionally, it takes about half an hour for the air to redissolve back into the fluid, and that's why it takes some time before you can crack your knuckles again!

And finally, it's not considered harmful except for making your grip a tad weaker! So, don't do this if you're into arm wrestling!

The detailed answer is here.

20 Questions!

2004-09-03T22:34:00.000-07:00

You've all played that game called 20 Questions, right?

It takes two, one person thinks of something and the other person has to guess what it is by asking 20 questions. If s(h)e succeeds they've won, otherwise you win. Simple, isn't it?

Now, there's an internet version of the game, which is really enjoyable to play. Basically, you pit your wits against the computer. Of course, thinking up of names of people or places is not allowed. I thought of 'Yak' and it guessed it right on the dot! Quite amusing really.

You have to click on 'Play 20Q' at the website. You have to fill in some details of yourself because the computer makes allowances for you if you're from Mars.

You have to answer the questions thoughtfully though! And honestly! And make sure you choose between 'No', 'Irrelevant', 'Probably' and 'Doubtful' correctly.

Also, if the computer guesses early or doesn't succeed in 20 questions, you can give the computer a chance to continue further by choosing 'Close'!

Enjoy!

What? Another day?

2004-08-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

We think we're immortal, don't we?

I mean, how many times has it been when you've gotten up in the morning and said to yourself - "Today's the last day of my life". Have you? Ever? (Please don't suggest I use Prozac. This is an intellectual conversation, not a humorous one!) Say you know for sure, today's going to be your last day. What would you do different?

Would you still hit that snooze button? Would you still plan your day ahead from the moment your eyes open? Would your brain keep goading you to get up while running down things to do for the day even before you opened your eyes? Would you?

Would you be always 30 minutes ahead inside your head until you reached your office desk? And then heave a sigh and switch on your computer and check your mail? Would you then get totally immersed in trying to resolve issues cropping up? Until about 10 in the morning when your brain says, "C'mon, let's take a coffee break"?

And then go through meetings acting knowledgeable when you knew they were a sheer waste of time? Would you then go through lunch talking about inconsequential things while fulfilling the most basic of human needs?

And then when it's late afternoon, would you start planning for the evening? What are the errands to run? What are the groceries to buy? Why not catch up on that movie you've been wanting to see? Would you go home and browse some more and switch on the TV?

And then, finally, when your head touches the pillow, what do you think? A good day? A bad day? What are the things to be done tomorrow?

Is this life?

Living, as it were, in the future, all the time? An automaton? Well worse. At least an automaton doesn't get frustrated!

So, my question is, if today is the last day of your life. What are you going to do different?

Smell the flowers? Feel the breeze? Okay, okay, we've all done that, haven't we? Sometimes it's a birthday, sometimes it's the New Year's Day. Sometimes, the first day of a well deserved holiday. But these don't qualify.

How would you do the same things that you would do otherwise differently?

Would you wake in the morning and sleep for another half an hour without feeling guilty? Would you get to work late and say honestly, "I was having such a wonderful early morning, peaceful nap that I didn't want to give it up". Would you enjoy the first coffee of the day slowly and leisurely so that the feeling lasts the whole day? Would you eat lunch not just for filling your stomach but to cherish each morsel you put in your mouth? Would you walk out of office in the evening and look up and think "What a wonderful day I've had". Would you have an evening of love and laughter and no technology?

And when you put your head on your pillow, would you smile and say to yourself "I've had a great life. I can die peacefully now".

If today was my last day, I would do things diffently, wouldn't I?

Wouldn't I?

Indian Software Management

2004-08-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

Here's my two paisa on management!!!

Ok, not management in general, but what management is considered to be, within the realms of IT organisations, especially those dealing with software.

Unlike any other organisation of any shape or form, here human resources are the ONLY asset. It's possible to move any number of terabytes over a transatlantic cable, but not one will move without the right persons being at both the ends. Although this gets repeated ad nauseum, I still don't think it gets appreciated or recognised enough.

Surprisingly though, this does get appreciated at the team and project level. This is the level where actual planning, designing, construction, testing and implementing takes place. Basically, where actual work happens. But just at one level higher than this, when people start dealing with reports and charts, something happens! Egos start appearing, seemingly out of nowhere! Power becomes something to strive for! I don't know how this transition happens. Somehow, managements, especially Indian software managements, start getting bloated in the head. And suddenly, management stops being managing people to get work done. It becomes primarily managing egos of surrounding individuals to sustain one's own survival! This is the one thing that I failed to understand when I was in the 'management' cadre.

And where there's ego, there's politics. And where there's politics there's corruption. We think corruption is something like paying a bribe to get a driving license. But it's something far, far more sinister and insidious than that. It degrades morality, it kills ethics, and it drains the world of all it's colours and paints it only in grays. It dehumanises humans. (Sense of humour also gets degraded!!) Somehow, next time at the RTO to extend the license, it becomes a little easier to pay that bribe, it becomes a little easier to pay the customs guy at the airport, it becomes a little easier to lie.

And this is crazy, don't you think?

A long time back, Gandhi said, "What is morally wrong, can never be politically correct". This one quote that I repeat to myself again and again when I'm faced with a dilemma.

Today, I read a quote by Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, in an interview -
"Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together. I have no legal or explicit power. I only have the power of having people's trust - but that's a lot of power."

And this is the trust which the team places on managers.

I think there are a number of reasons why this trust gets broken. One of the main things ailing Indian software organisations, in my opinion, is the incessant urge to create more managers. I fail to understand why! After a few years in the (actual) work level, individuals are pushed into areas of management for some reason. I think the expectation is that if you're able to handle the technology, you'll be able to handle people who handle that technology. I think this, in essence, is a flawed argument. For some reason, the individual's own skills are considered secondary to being able to get someone at the management level!!

Okay, okay, I'm just talking out of my experience and that too only in one organisation, so my opinions might not be generic to other software organisations both in India and abroad.

But what do all of you think?

India and Technology

2004-08-19T21:56:00.000-07:00

Something is changing in this world.

Like Om Malik, of Gigaom, says, "The axis of technology has shifted to somewhere over the South China sea".

And when it comes to technology in India, that really gets me up! And I don't mean only in urban India, I don't mean boasting about wi-fi connectivity while sitting in a pub in Marine drive in Bombay, nor do I mean spending a lazy afternoon knocking down a few on Church street in Bangalore while watching the last sixer hit by Sachin on the cell phone. (Yup, you guessed it, beer is another thing which picks me up, but that's another story!) Anyways, these are just what they sound like - idle boasts and false pride. No, I'm talking about getting technology to the people, the people who really sweat, who really bleed, who really work. People who crave to do something better with their lives, not for their own sake, but for their children. People who see a better future in their kids than they can ever hope to have for themselves. People who know that the project they are involved in will never be complete in their lifetimes, who's results will be judged by future generations, and despite all that, still put in more than the get out of it. That is what moves me.

So when I came across two small items which didn't get too much headlines, my ears perked up. One was the largest wi-fi network in the world having been set up in Kerala. And the other was about the info-thela, or info cart, where wireless connectivity is being brought to the masses using a cycle rikshaws!

I had heard about innovative uses of wi-fi in India earlier. Take the instance of setting up wi-fi access points on Karnataka State Transport buses, so that every village they pass through gets connectivity! And wi-fi being wi-fi, the signals jump from one bus to another as they move in and out of range. And the best part? To service all access points you send one technician to the bus terminus, instead of sending tens of people across to static wi-fi access points set across the country! (And please, please don't ask me how they connect during the night. I mean, every person I've mentioned this to asks me that question!)

Apparently, Indian farmers nowadays check global prices of their goods every morning before they go to sell their stuff to the merchants! ITC, yes, the same ITC, which all of us have paid a lot of money to while smoking cigarettes (and which I still do!), has won the 'World Business Award' which is given to companies assisting development. Check out their e-Choupal site.

India also has set up the World's largest highways project. Although this particular one I do have a contention with, considering that we have such a wonderful network of railways (well, their website also needs some work!), but I guess when you have such a lot of people, maybe the railways are not sufficient!

By the way, when was the last time (ahem!) you checked out the website of the President? Or that of the Prime Minister's? Quite an education in themselves. The President's is my favourite, of course!!

Life building upon life. Innovation builing upon innovation. The future is not out there, it's in here. In life, in hopes, in dreams.

Seen yourself in a mirror lately?

2004-08-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

Try it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just try this.... append .mirror.sytes.org to any web page's url and see what happens !!!!

eg :
www.google.com.mirror.sytes.org
www.yahoo.com.mirror.sytes.org

.tijihbA -

Browse faster AND cheaper?

2004-08-09T17:30:00.000-07:00

Sure, why not? Here are my suggestions:
1. STOP USING INTERNET EXPLORER! (With apologies to Microsoft!)
I have a love-hate relationship with Microsoft! They've filched some of the best ideas from others and have done a lot of marketing shenanigans, but without Microsoft, the world would not have been what it is today. All the same, they are entirely guilty of not improving their browser, once they won over Netscape. And considering that 70% of the world uses it, they should be more responsible.

My favourite is Opera as I've mentioned before. I can integrate my browsing, mail, RSS feeds, notepad, and whatever else I can think of in one place. Plus Opera's speed is unmatched. One of the best feature is to not download any images and only download the text. This itself makes the browsing way, way faster. Additionally, Opera caches the images downloaded once (think about the Yahoo logo) and reuses them instead of downloading it again. Additionally, when you do download images, they are downloaded first as grainy pictures and then the resolution slowly increases. Unlike Internet Explorer, which downloads them in a curtain fashion. So you can see an image and them stop downloading as soon as you know it's irrelevant. Additionally, you get one click control to unnecessary plugins like all those stupid advertisements. So browsing is not just faster, it's also more peaceful!!

As a tutorial, you can read '30 days to becoming an Opera lover'

The other browser option is of course, Mozilla Firefox.

Lastly, if you absolutely HAVE TO use Internet Explorer, get the best Internet explorer shell there is, (that is, it still uses Internet Explorer behind the scenes). It's called Maxthon (earlier MyIE2). It has many of the controls I mention above.

2. Broadband is overhyped!
Also, why would anyone want to pay for something 24 hours a day, when you use it only for a few hours?? Well, I agree it's fast, (and yours truly is guilty too!) but then there's a lot of other technologies out there which is not getting as much publicity or attention as required.

- Internet Accelerators
This is a method by which the Internet Service Provider (ISP), caches frequently visited websites, both at your PC as well at their servers. They also make the photographs of lower resolution so that they download faster.
This is one thing that would really help slow connections, in India or anywhere else.

Also, currently, there's not enough broadband content available. At the most you can watch some internet TV or videos, which are really irrelevant. After all, if we pay for electricity and water by the amount that's used, it doesn't make sense to use cable any differently.

- Bittorrent
This software, (I've mentioned this earlier also), is basically a Peer to Peer (P2P) file sharing software, like Kazaa or the erstwhile Napster. The only difference being that instead of connecting to one person who has the file that you need, it breaks it up and gets whatever piece is available from whoever. And as soon as you get a piece it immediately shares it with everyone else. The best bittorrent client is Azureus.

A good tutorial for Bittorrent is here

And here's one earth shattering idea - why not use the same concept of bittorrent not only to files but also to websites?? Why do you need to download the Hotmail or Yahoo login page, when your neighbour has just done it a few hours ago? Wouldn't it be great if the standard pages like Rediff, Google, eBay, Times of India pages could be shared among everyone online, rather than come from a central server every time?

I'm sure this is going to happen soon, let's see which of the ISP companies this idea strikes first!

Free music? You must be joking!

2004-07-29T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm not. Here's a list of sites
which offer free music. And believe it or not, Amazon is listed too!

Enjoy!

Thanks to a list of sites" target="_blank">The Red Ferret Journal

An Indian Computer? Come on.

2004-07-22T23:28:00.000-07:00

What? And indigenous product from India? A Handheld? No. A PDA? No. A Pocket PC? No. What the heck is this? Ah, the latest incarnation of the famed Simputer. A complete computer in the hand.

Finally. Although it's not the poor man's PC anymore. What with the price starting from around $ 240. But finally it's out.

I like the fact that it has a built in Web browser and with the Reliance Data Plan, I really don't need to carry a laptop anymore (Not that I do in the first place!) But with basic connectivity, email, Personal Information Manager, even an MP3 player, it sounds like a shape of things to come.

Wishlist: Wi-fi (currently optional, with third party cards), compatibilty with MS Office would be an added advantage. Maybe an integrated phone next?

I like the flip-flop view though!

Have a look!

These are so bad, they're good!

2004-07-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Okay, don't say I didn't warn you. All of them are big files (take time to download), are anti-Bush, but all of them are hilarious as hell! The last one, by the way, even contains profanity, so keep kids away and a sense of humour handy!

This Land (3.9 MB)

Edited State of the Union Speech (14.5 MB)

This one is under the belt!

Direct Link to video (8.9 MB)