TIME.com: Meet the Hard-Nosed Do-Gooders -- Dec. 19, 2005 -- Page 2

TIME.com: Meet the Hard-Nosed Do-Gooders -- Dec. 19, 2005 -- Page 2: "Enter a different breed of M.B.A.: social entrepreneurs like Priya Haji, 35, Siddharth Sanghvi, 30, and David Guendelman, 28, who last year founded the giftware company World of Good. A for-profit, socially responsible start-up that makes grants to a nonprofit sister organization, World of Good has impressed venture capitalists who usually put their money into the latest technological innovation. But the business plan put forward by the Berkeley M.B.A.s--which won this year's Global Social Venture Competition--has VCs convinced that there's also money to be made from handmade silk scarves, woven bags, beaded jewelry and 'nonviolent' leather products (the cow must die of natural causes). The business 'can help thousands and thousands of communities,' says Haji. And within a year, it was in the black. Says Duke's Dees: 'Business doesn't know better than the nonprofit world. It just provides another set of tools that we should look at using for social good. And we should use any tools we can.'"

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indecency guide for tourists to India

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indecency guide for tourists to India: "Do not hug or kiss in public - even when meeting at stations and airports - and do not smoke or consume alcohol publicly either.

These are some of the guidelines being given to tourists visiting a popular part of India's north-western Rajasthan state to ensure they can respect local culture.

The guidelines come after a number of unfortunate cultural faux pas, including an Israeli couple kissing at their Hindu wedding ceremony and a Finnish woman walking naked down the streets of Pushkar.

Officials say the list of these dos and don'ts has been prepared by the local administration in Ajmer district to 'educate foreign tourists about local culture and sensibilities'.

Prithvi Raj Sankhla, Ajmer city's sub-divisional magistrate, told the BBC: 'We have asked hotels and restaurants across the city to hand out the 20-page booklet to tourists as soon as they check in.'

The guidelines say:

* Men should never touch women in public, even to help a woman out of a car, unless the lady is very elderly or infirm

* In Indian culture... men socialise with men, and women with women

* Married couples in Asia do not hug, hold hands or kiss in public. Even embracing at airports and train stations is considered out of the question

* Generally it is improper for women to speak with strangers on the street and especially to strike up a casual conversation

* Drinking alcohol or smoking in public, no matter how innocent, are interpreted as a sign of moral laxity and are not acceptable."

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Symbols

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, & Transgender Symbols: "Pink Triangle

As most everyone knows, the pink triangle is a symbol taken directly from the Nazi concentration camps. Usually when concentration camps and Nazis are mentioned, most people tend to think of Jews and the Jewish Holocaust (for good reason). But the fact that a large number of homosexual prisoners were in those same camps is an often ignored or overlooked fact of history.

The real story behind the pink triangle begins prior to World War II. Paragraph 175, a clause in German law, prohibited homosexual relations (much like many states in the U.S. today have laws against 'crimes of nature'). In 1935, during Hitler's rise to power, he extended this law to include homosexual kissing, embracing, and even having homosexual fantasies. An estimated 25,000 people were convicted under this law between 1937 and 1939 alone. They were sent to prisons and later concentration camps. Their sentence also included sterilization, most commonly in the form of castration. In 1942, Hitler extended the punishment for homosexuality to death.

Prisoners in Nazi concentration camps were labeled according to their crimes by inverted colored triangles. 'Regular' criminals were denoted by a green triangle, political prisoners by red triangles and Jews by two overlapping yellow triangles (to form the Star of David, the most common Jewish symbol). Homosexual prisoners were labels with pink triangles. Gay Jews- the lowest form of prisoner- had overlapping yellow and pink triangles. This system also created a social hierarchy among the prisoners, and it has been reported that the pink triangle prisoners often received the worst workloads and were continually harassed and beaten by both guards and other prisoners.

Although homosexual prisoners were not shipped en mass to the Aushwitz death camps like so many of the Jewish prisoners, there were still large numbers of gay men executed there along with other non-Jewish prisoners. The real tragedy thou"

Stonewall Revisited: Homosexual, Lesbian & Gay Issue of Sex & Sexuality

Stonewall Revisited: Homosexual, Lesbian & Gay Issue of Sex & Sexuality: "About Stonewall. For gay, lesbian and bisexual activists, the word 'Stonewall' signifies quite possibly the most important, single landmark in the worldwide struggle for gay rights. Most chroniclers of the homosexual rights movement trace the beginnings of the movement's militant phase to 1969 and New York's lower-Manhattan (largely gay-frequented) Stonewall Bar. There, for the first time on record, homosexual patrons fought back when Stonewall was raided one hot summer night by New York City policemen, who came hoping to arrest gay individuals for engaging in then illegal homosexual acts.

Eyewitnesses claim that the homosexual patrons' counter-riot began when one burly, Stonewall patron hurled a lidded, metal garbage can filled with empty liquor bottles through a police car window.

Ever since that night, Stonewall has been revered as an enduring symbol of the gay militant spark lit that night, which has become a gay/lesbian/bisexual militant conflagration setting America -- and the world -- aflame with gay rights issues and conflicts. "

First result of the SNLS

First result of the SNLS: "WAS EINSTEIN'S BIGGEST BLUNDER A STELLAR SUCCESS? The genius of Albert Einstein, who added a 'cosmological constant' to his equation for the expansion of the universe but later retracted it, may be vindicated by new research. The enigmatic dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe behaves just like Einstein's famed cosmological constant, according to the Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS), an international team of researchers in France and Canada that collaborated with large telescope observers at Oxford, Caltech and Berkeley. Their observations reveal that the dark energy behaves like Einstein's cosmological constant to a precision of 10 per cent. 'The significance is huge,' said Professor Ray Carlberg of the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at U of T. 'Our observation is at odds with a number of theoretical ideas about the nature of dark energy that predict that it should change as the universe expands, and as far as we can see, it doesn't.' The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics."

Bihar - Rama Bijapurkar

I hadnt heard of Rama Bijapurkar before. Seems like a very smart person and the article is a pretty interesting read. Its at times like these (change in bihar) that I miss all the noise from the Indian News Channels.

[via Indian Express.]

Relaunching Brand Bihar

Key question for marketers: will children of 'social justice' behave like regular guys?

Rama Bijapurkar

I remember a discussion a few years ago at a strategic planning session of a multinational consumer goods company on how people of India were changing. Lots was said about the positive effects of liberalisation and all its spin-off effects, on the attitudes of the people of India. Until someone suddenly broke the spell by asking, "If all this is true, then why do millions of people vote for Laloo in Bihar? Do we even know for sure?" An expat sitting through the meeting asked for clarification on Laloo and Bihar. And, with huge relish, got told all the Laloo and Bihar jokes and war stories, starting with an introduction to the word Bimaru. The joke about how we would happily hand over all of Kashmir to Pakistan, provided they took Bihar as well; the one that said that Laloo asked the people of Bihar why they needed roads — did they have cars? Motorcycles? Even bicycles? "No? Then why on earth have roads on which the rich man can drive along in a car and spit on you?" The old favourite one of Japan offering to turn Bihar into Japan in three years, and Laloo scoffing and replying that with his superior efficiency he could turn Japan into Bihar in just three months. Another told us the (unverifiable) story of how he was being taken to Singapore for a roadshow by CII, and how he is supposed to have worn his suit and called a "railla" ("rally" being too effeminate a word for his rallies), and said to his people that he was going through all this pain just for them. A journalist friend of mine witnessed one of his earlier election rallies, and said it was a bizarre combination of a mega rock concert ambience and shockingly poor illiterate people who comprised the audience. Why then, asked the expat, do so many millions of people vote him, in the progressive and rapidly progressing India that you have just described? Total silence for a while. Because the Laloo brand, said one person, is about giving identity to an underclass that has been exploited by the upper class forever. It is a brand that emerged to innovatively serve the needs of a post-Mandal society in a state that was the most deeply impacted by virtue of its caste demography and caste history. A qualitative researcher said, "Because he tells the poor that it's okay to be who you are, it's okay to come riding on your cow, carrying your spittoon, you don't have to strive to be like Them." The sales manager explained: "Laloo created bonding through innovative rituals like the 'chhat' festival, making it to Bihar what Ganapati is to Maharashtra; a ritual that even the Shiv Sena borrowed to serve its Bihari migrant votebank, with a mega-event at Juhu beach earlier this year!" A media researcher said, "because they only have 20 per cent reach of television in Bihar, far lower than any other state", so they don't know any better about the world outside. "Because they are Biharis," said someone else, and clinched the argument. But what of the Bihar and the Bihari brand? The Bihar brand was, till today, perceived as a blot on the New Indian landscape. Perceived as a place that was stuck in a time warp, a bullock cart in a world of cars and jet planes, a jungle of lawlessness where power came from the barrel of the goonda's gun, and a land which was the feudal fiefdom of a ruthless and eccentric raja, lording it over his half-starved, uneducated, 80 million-plus people. What was worse was that this eccentric raja was repeatedly being elected back by his subjects, who seemed to want to be trampled all over. But some people were quick to point out, that the "wanting to be trampled all over" view is an uninformed, elitist, chattering view. That in reality, Bihar was the land of the brave that chose, as NDTV said yesterday, perhaps dignity over development. Somehow, when you look at all economic and human development metrics of Bihar, this view is a bit hollow — where's the dignity? Also when you see all the migrants from Bihar, it appears that it is defeatism rather than dignity that was the hallmark of the brand. In the past two days I have read and heard a totally different view of the image people seem to have of Brand Bihar. It has become a re-launched, new improved Bihar. It is seen to be someone who after many years is stirring to life, has shaken off its shackles, woken up from its deep hibernation, and decided to join the rest of India. One of the key shifts we have been seeing in the rest of India, post-liberalisation, is the shift from "demanding social justice" to "grabbing economic opportunity". It is the shift best epitomised by Amitabh Bachchan. The shift from fighting for the social justice underdog in Deewar and Coolie to grabbing the economic opportunity of Kaun Banega Crorepati. Frankly, consumer marketers are relieved. If aspiration for a better life can triumph over everything else even in Bihar, then we know that this brand is in sync with the rest of Consumer India, and there's no looking back on the onward march to deepening consumption. The safety perception of Brand Bihar has just gone up several notches. If bijli, sadak, paani, padhai, vikas and governance are what people want here too, and not caste-based revenge as in "an eye for a past eye", then the Bihar brand is not an unpredictable time bomb that could blow up in the face of the rest of India at any time, but a regular guy, who is wanting to do what regular guys do to improve their lot in life. However before we bring out the champagne and look forward to the Bengal elections, there is this nagging feeling in some of our minds: is this just another trick of electoral arithmetic and split votes? Of upper classes revenging themselves by voting out the patron saint of the lower classes? To borrow a line from an Indian Express editorial, has Bihar truly cast its vote or is this version 2.0 of the state voting its caste? Either way, there is a window of opportunity and I hope we seize it and make our early impressions of a New improved Bihar a reality. The writer is a market strategy consultant

Back home

Wow. I didnt know I would be excited, but going back to India is making me feel very happy : )

EETimes.com - India's HCL Tech to set up PowerPC design center

EETimes.com - India's HCL Tech to set up PowerPC design center: "BANGALORE, India — HCL Technologies Ltd. has acquired the right to use and sub-license IBM Corp.'s PowerPC and PowerPC 440 embedded microprocessor cores and some specific peripheral cores.

HCL (New Delhi) will use the license rights to establish itself as the first Power Architecture design center outside an IBM business line. Plans call for the center to expand power Architecture designs in more applications such as networking, wireless and consumer devices.

The pact will enable HCL to offer original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) a range of Power Architecture system-on-chip (SoC) solutions, including sub-licensing of the IBM PowerPC 405 and PowerPC 440 embedded microprocessor cores. HCL plans to provide customers access to high-performance peripheral cores with a native CoreConnect interface, the open system bus architecture of IBM.

“This alliance helps HCL further expand as a design house,' said Divakar Maddipatla, corporate vice president and head of HCL's semiconductor practice. 'We are excited about the opportunity to offer Power Architecture-based end-to-end design solutions to OEMs.'

HCL already provides system design solutions including VLSI and hardware designs to the consumer, telecoms and storage domains. It is among the top software solutions providers in India and is part of the $2.7 billion HCL Enterprise.

“IBM’s goal is to make Power Architecture solutions as pervasive and as open as possible. This strategy applies not only to our architecture, but extends to our ecosystem of alliance associates and our routes to market,” said Ron Martino, director of Power products at IBM."

Computing the Cost of 'Acting White' - New York Times

Computing the Cost of 'Acting White' - New York Times: "Why would minority students with better grades end up with fewer friends at integrated public schools? Fryer believes it's more a class problem than a race problem - something that arises when a group comes in contact with another group whose members have historically been higher achievers.

'Groups around the world face the same tension,' he said. 'When there are inequalities in society and you have a group that has been fundamentally disadvantaged, there's a tension between wanting to excel in the outside world and being loyal to your own group. If you're in an all-black school and you get good grades, that's not a signal you're being disloyal. But in an integrated school, it can be a signal that you're being disloyal by joining the other group.'

As a result, Fryer says, minority students face a cruel choice at precisely the kinds of integrated schools that are supposed to be eliminating their disadvantages. 'When blacks are forced to pay a social price for getting good grades,' he said, 'there are going to be some black students who won't achieve their full potential.'"

Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan - New York Times

Ugly Images of Asian Rivals Become Best Sellers in Japan - New York Times: "The two comic books, portraying Chinese and Koreans as base peoples and advocating confrontation with them, have become runaway best sellers in Japan in the last four months.

In their graphic and unflattering drawings of Japan's fellow Asians and in the unapologetic, often offensive contents of their speech bubbles, the books reveal some of the sentiments underlying Japan's worsening relations with the rest of Asia."

Down with Rose

Why does this buffoon just get out of public television ?
What a bungling of the chalabi interview ... IDIOT !!

Itanium sinks again in supercomputers | CNET News.com

Itanium sinks again in supercomputers | CNET News.com: "The Itanium chip family, which Intel has relegated to high-end servers, has rapidly declined on the Top500 Supercomputer list. In November 2004 the list had 84 computers with Itanium 2 processors. In June 2005, the number shrunk to 79.

Now only 46 computers contain Itanium 2 chips, according to the latest list, released Monday.

Meanwhile, the number of supercomputers using Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron chips has increased. A total of 55 Opteron-based computers made the list, up from 25 in June. (Opterons were found in just 29 computers on the November 2004 list.)"

[Slashdotted]

What does the "Rx" sign mean on pharmacies?

What does the "Rx" sign mean on pharmacies?: "Once again, we can blame Latin for a curious term. In English, 'Rx' doesn't seem to have any connection to 'pharmacy.' However it does in Latin, albeit in a roundabout way.

According to Yahoo! Reference, 'Rx' means 'prescription for medicine.' The letters abbreviate the Latin word recipe, which is a form of the verb 'to take.'

Doctors write Rx in the heading of prescriptions as an instruction to 'take' the medicine. The pharmacists filling the orders understand this shorthand (and hopefully they can read the doctors' handwriting) and print it on pill bottles with whatever else doctors order, such as 'take twice daily with food.' Somewhere along the line, pharmacists started using 'Rx' on their storefront signs so patients knew where to get their doctors' instructions translated.

Another possible meaning for 'Rx' suggests that it's a form of the astrological symbol for the Roman god Jupiter, written on prescriptions to get the god's blessing. However, Jupiter's symbol bears only a faint resemblance to 'Rx.' Although Jupiter was something of a protector figure, mythology doesn't connect him with medicine or healing.

Not surprisingly, this explanation still points the finger at Latin."

ABC News: Sun Microsystems Unveils New Server Chip

ABC News: Sun Microsystems Unveils New Server Chip: "Sun also is touting its new chip as 'eco-friendly.' It said removing the world's Web servers and replacing them with half the number of UltraSparc T1-based systems would have the same effect on carbon dioxide emissions as planting 1 million trees."

[slashdotted]

Khushboo's comments stir controversy

Khushboo's comments stir controversy: "Taken aback by the outcry, Kushboo has tendered an open apology to Tamils, especially women, saying she would never dream of sullying the image of the Tamil people. Cutting short her visit to Singapore, she has returned. 'Even in films, I never undertook roles that lowered the image of women,' she has said, in a statement. 'I have the greatest regard for Tamils, especially Tamil women. If my remarks have hurt anybody's feelings, I tender an apology. I am one among you and will always remain with you.'

Meanwhile,a defamation suit has been filed today in a city metropolitan magistrate's court under Sec 499 and 500 of the IPC (punishment for defamation) against the actress. An effigy was also burnt in Salem city."

Wow, she has to now prove that she is culturaaly one with the tamilians. Prime example of how national borders dont mean anything. If you are of a different origin you will always be 'different'. We need people like her to challenge the inertia of the tamilian culture.

Dictionary.com/schtick

Dictionary.com/schtick: "shtick also schtick or shtik Audio pronunciation of 'schtick' ( P ) Pronunciation Key (shtk)
n. Slang

1. A characteristic attribute, talent, or trait that is helpful in securing recognition or attention: waiters in tropical attire are part of the restaurant's shtick.
2. An entertainment routine or gimmick.


[Yiddish shtik, piece, routine, from Middle High German st�cke, piece, from Old High German stukki, crust, fragment.]
"

Boy launches McDonald's boycott over US-Canada lumber rift - Yahoo! News

Boy launches McDonald's boycott over US-Canada lumber rift - Yahoo! News: "MONTREAL (AFP) - A 10-year-old Canadian boy has called for a boycott of US fast food chain McDonald's in hopes of hastening an end to the deep rift over lumber trade between Canada and the United States."

BBC NEWS | Business | Norway in women bosses ultimatum

BBC NEWS | Business | Norway in women bosses ultimatum: "Norway has said it might close down companies that fail to meet proposed boardroom quotas for women.
The new coalition government in Oslo said it was considering introducing a law which would require 40% of boardroom posts to be filled by women.
Norway's previous government drew up the law, which it threatened to apply if companies failed voluntarily to meet minimum quotas by 1 July this year.
Only a fifth of Norway's 590 publicly listed firms comply with the quotas.
'It's not going fast enough,' said Karita Bekkemellem, Norway's minister for family and children.
'I don't want to wait 20 or 30 years until sufficiently intelligent men finally appoint women to the boardrooms.'
She added: 'I wish to establish, from January 1 2006, a system of sanctions which makes it possible to break up companies.'"


I dont know if this is right, infact I think it is not. Most women dont show interest in working hard to make it to the top. Norway should make other changes in the society which makes women want to work as hard. This can be done only in a developed country like Norway, but would a super-duper capitalist society like the US take such steps ever ?

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Profile: Liberia's 'Iron Lady'

BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Profile: Liberia's 'Iron Lady': "Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 67, fondly called the 'Iron Lady' by her supporters, is set to become Africa's first elected female head of state following Liberia's presidential run-off."

BBC NEWS | Health | Becoming a father 'civilises' men

BBC NEWS | Health | Becoming a father 'civilises' men: "Fatherhood significantly reduces men's testosterone levels, a study has shown.

US researchers compared levels of the male sex hormone among single men and married men with and without children amongst Chinese students.

Those who were fathers had the lowest levels of all, the Proceedings of the Royal Society study found.

"

Express Shaadi

Whats this obsession with marriage that Indian Express has. They are just trying to cash in on so many young professionals living alone in a foreign country. It all looks very pathetic. What does this say about us guys here in the US ?
Is a moral code which gets 26 yr old guys obsessed with marriage any good ?  Everyday I feel more and more lost trying to understand the world :(
Maybe moral codes are the thumb rules which guide people incapable of acting rationally when let to live by their own accord.
hahahahaha ... democracy where are you ??

BBC NEWS | Technology | Women are 'put off' hi-tech jobs

BBC NEWS | Technology | Women are 'put off' hi-tech jobs: "Part-time work was also identified as having a poor image within the industry. Those who work part-time said they were not given the same responsibilities or opportunities as full-time colleagues.

Many women questioned reported that they would be more inclined to stay if there was less pressure to work long hours in a full-time role."

I would really like more women to contribute to the hi-tech industry. Especially with the latest thrust towards simplicity as a USP I think gender diversity would be very critical. However its clear part time working is considered to be less commitment and thus less appreciated by the employer. How could we change this perception ?
Well I think this perception could just change in some creative industries. In engineering, productivity and the engineer's skills increases linearly with the number of hours you put in. How then would we appreciate someone who is working less hours ?? Am I missing something ??

Mahatma - education - India

I was watching 'Making of the Mahatma' by Shyam Benegal. It shows the human side of Mr.Mohandas. He was no doubt a great man but more than anything else he was human. Maybe we shouldnt have called him Mahatma. We dont even want to understand him for being human.
I think there is a good case study to be made of how he was a bad father and probably a bad husband. In India as part of my education I am just taught of Mr. Gandhi as the father of the nation, the person who lead the Indian cause in the struggle for independence.
Maybe I was too young to understand the subtleties when I was in school. So now, is all this information just for me to voluntarily grab when I grow older. How many of use dont even expose ourselves to such thoughts. By not making such elements part of our educational experience we are just produing literate youth as compared to educated youth. Only those who have an environment of tolerance to different thoughts would turn out to be educated.

As an unrelated thought. If you havent seen Magdalene sisters you should.

Techtree.com India > News > Hardware > IBM Develops Xbox 360 CPU

Techtree.com India > News > Hardware > IBM Develops Xbox 360 CPU: "This chip features a customized version of IBM's 64-bit PowerPC core. It includes three of these cores, each with two simultaneous threads and clock speeds greater than 3 GHz. The chip features 165 million transistors and is fabricated using IBM's 90 nm Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology to reduce heat and improve performance. Its 21.6 GBps Front Side Bus (FSB) Architecture was customized to meet the demanding throughput and latency requirements of the Xbox 360 gaming platform software.
"

How new words become part of a language

New Scientist Breaking News - How new words become part of a language: "While Steels and colleagues hope to develop more complex models capable of evolving grammar, they already see potential applications in computing. For instance, programmers currently have to establish standards to get commercial or scientific databases to communicate effectively. It may soon be possible to get computers to talk to one another by letting them evolve a common language on their own."

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - A&E: Esquire names Jessica Biel sexiest woman

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: AP - A&E: Esquire names Jessica Biel sexiest woman: "NEW YORK -- Jessica Biel has been proclaimed 'the sexiest woman alive' by Esquire magazine. The actress is featured on the cover of Esquire's November issue, following last year's honoree, Angelina Jolie.

The 23-year-old Biel, who began as a teenager on the family TV series '7th Heaven,' plays a supporting role in the upcoming 'Elizabethtown' and starred earlier this year in 'Stealth.'"

Have you ever heard people call anyone the smartest person alive. Or the most generous person alive. These other adjectives are usually qualified. why then are beauty describing adjectives so superlative and unqualified ??

In Good Company - Women and Leadership - Newsweek - MSNBC.com

In Good Company - Women and Leadership - Newsweek - MSNBC.com: "Her status as a female officer would make her a rarity at many companies, but not at Xerox. The $15.7 billion document-management company is one of only nine in the Fortune 500 with a female CEO, but its gender diversity extends far beyond the corner office. Of Xerox's 32 corporate officers, eight are women. So are 800 of its middle managers, more than 30 percent of the total. The company is routinely ranked among the best places for women to work. Inside its Connecticut headquarters, female employees describe a culture where no one hesitates to reschedule a meeting to take a child to the pediatrician. Managers are judged—and compensated—on meeting diversity goals. At Xerox, 'people really believe this—this is not cosmetic,' says David Nadler, chairman of Mercer Delta Consulting, who worked with Xerox for 20 years. 'They don't see diversity as somehow in conflict with meritocracy.'"

Lightning Strikes Everyday

Lightning Strikes Everyday: "We have all heard Arjunan refer to Lord.Krishna as Madhusudanan. Interesting thing if you read Mahabharatha is the names that Arjunan etc use to refer to Krishna. In fact each name Arjunan calls Sri Krishna like Madhusudanan etc. depends on the context of the situation in which Arjunan talks to Lord.Sri "

Great Idea

As we know more and more its going to be more and more difficult to come up with an innovative idea. Is that true ?
Well ideas would be innovative but the perceived impact that they would have, would be limited.

Phass gaya

Feel like being stuck in a vortex. bachaaaoooo !!
Really strong monday morning nausea I guess :)

Music Doctoring

NYTimes.com: Circuits Newsletter: "Like many recording engineers these days, Jan works primarily in Pro Tools, a program that records audio directly to the hard drive. On the screen, you see bands of horizontal sound waves that represent the chunks of audio, which you can slice, dice, copy or paste. In this way, you can record, say, five takes of the same vocal line; later, when the musicians have gone home, you can choose the best chunks -- even the best syllables or even consonants -- from each take, and merge them into a single ''best of'' take.

None of this was new to me; back when Pro Tools and I were both young, I spent a lot of time in programs like this.

What blew me away, though, was the plug-ins.

On this special wedding CD, our soloists' interpretation, performance and vocal quality were amazing, but here and there we found notes that were sung just a hair sharp or flat. I'd suggest a retake, but Steve and Jan would say, ''We'll fix it.''

Turns out you can now buy add-on modules for Pro Tools that take sonic tweaking to an astounding new level. One of them, a $400 bit of magic called Anteres Auto-Tune, lets you fix off-pitch notes. As you can see by the lower illustration here (www.antarestech.com/products/auto-tune4.html), each sung or played note is represented by a horizontal line. You can literally drag these bars higher or lower, correcting their pitches without otherwise changing a single aspect of the original performance. The processing is undetectable; it simply sounds like your singer or player hit the correct notes in perfect tune."

Will our kids appreciate Lata, Kishore or Rafi ever ? They probably would have music lessons which woiuld have the same text books we use for DSP speech processing. Basic human talents would slowly be more and more undervalued. What if a computer could paint better than Picasso ? Would there ever be motivation to become an artist. No one would even think about art as we do today. Painting/Sculpting would mean understanding the science behind how the brain perceives colors and shapes and then generating thr best image based on your neural map. Can you adapt to that change within your lifetime.

Lingua English

$person =  " I rounded off when I was talking to him".
What he means by this is that he wasnt completely sure of the details of
implementation but he made a logical assumption and had a discussion on the impacts the block might have.
We do this so regularly and this is a cause of a lot of bugs. The brain cant handle the level fo details we need.
We need technology to somehow supplement us with this dont we ?
Hmmm maybe I should patent something on these lines :))

-Rajan

New ThinkPad Is All Work, and Some Play - New York Times

New ThinkPad Is All Work, and Some Play - New York Times: "THE Z is also the first laptop to offer, as an option, built-in EV-DO. That unfortunate term refers to a genuinely important new feature: a high-speed wireless connection that, because it relies on the cellular network, doesn't require finding a wireless hot spot in a coffee shop. When you have EV-DO, the entire city is your hot spot. You surf the Internet with the speed of a slowish cable modem - and when you're stuck in a taxi, miles from a Starbucks, that's a liberating feeling. (EV-DO stands for Evolution-Data Only, whatever that means.)

The EV-DO feature relies on the Verizon Wireless network, and it works in 54 cities. The price for this service recently dropped to $60 a month, from $80. (This feature, which Verizon calls Broadband Access, is available to other kinds of laptops, too, but only if you buy a PC card that costs $100 and protrudes awkwardly from the side of the laptop.)"

Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit - New York Times

Top Officials Told to Testify in Muslims' Suit - New York Times: "A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that former Attorney General John Ashcroft, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other top government officials will have to answer questions under oath in a lawsuit that accuses them of personally conspiring to violate the rights of Muslim immigrants held in a federal detention center in Brooklyn after 9/11.

The officials had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed without testimony, arguing in part that they had governmental immunity from its claims, that the court lacked jurisdiction because they live outside New York State, and that the Sept. 11 attacks created 'special factors' outweighing the plaintiffs' right to sue for damages for constitutional violations.

But the judge, John Gleeson, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, rejected those arguments, allowing the case to proceed - and opening the door to depositions of Mr. Ashcroft and the F.B.I. director, Robert S. Mueller III, by lawyers for the two plaintiffs: Ehab Elmaghraby, an Egyptian immigrant who ran a restaurant in Times Square, and Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani immigrant whose Long Island customers knew him as 'the cable guy.'"

Synaptic Alarm

I dont know what induces sleep. Maybe its the circadian clock cells which control the sleep inducing chemicals in our body. Today I was feeling super sleepy and then I worked on something which I couldnt wrap my mind around for the longest time. When i started I thought I shouldnt bother with this complex stuff when i am soo drowsy but as I kept at it , I just saw the cheer that understanding stuff brought me and the cheer drove away bits of sleep until I was awake and excited by the time I solved the problem and discussed it with a colleague.

Now I have had lunch and I am back to being Mr.Drowsy :)

Shekhar Kapur's Paani

TIME Asia Magazine: The Numbers Man -- Mar. 21, 2005: "For the first time he can remember, India's richest film-maker is having trouble with his math. Specifically, how 600,000 goes into 175. The first figure is the population of Dharavi, Asia's most populous slum, which he's currently exploring. The second is the number of hectares Dharavi covers in Bombay, an area half the size of New York City's Central Park. In a different life, Shekhar Kapur spent seven years crunching numbers as a corporate planner for a multinational oil company. He surveys the tiny one-room lean-tos where teeming families live shoulder to shoulder in spaces that double as hole-in-the-wall shops, goat sheds or miniature factories producing dyes, glues and shiny tin boxes. It just doesn't seem possible. 'Look at this place,' he says. 'Look how they adapt.'

What really stumps Kapur is the giant water pipe on which he's balancing. The duct cuts through the maze of rubbish-strewn roofs and filthy alleys to carry water to the seafront Art Deco apartments of Colaba, the flashiest neighborhood in India's most swanky town. But here in Dharavi, a lost city under the overpasses linking the airport with the steel-and-glass blocks downtown, the only running water is what seeps out of cracks in the pipe. Which brings Kapur to other difficult digits. Like 150, the number of working toilets in Dharavi. Or 20, the number of years Kapur gives Bombay before it divides forever into rich and poor, high-rise city and low-rise slum, where 25 floors up there's water for Jacuzzis but down below there's barely enough for life.

The calculation leads Kapur to two conclusions. One: 'Water will soon be the world's most valuable commodity, and places like Dharavi will have none.' Two: he's going to make a film about it. This project, Water (Paani in Hindi), has become such an obsession that despite commitments to direct Morgan Freeman in a film about Nelson Mandela and Cate Blanchett and"

Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

Very Very Very nice movie. Set in the 1960s and 70s in India. The generation in which students participated in the Naxal-bari (naxalite) movement and then moves on to the emergency and how Mrs. Gandhi screwed us over. The characterization is really beautiful. I cant put it in words the beauty of this movie.  Other famous film-makers have used much better words (http://www.hkathefeature.com/).
The strength of the leading lady Geeta Rao (played by Chitrangada Singh) is very inspiring. Each characters psychology is beuatifully explored by Suhir Mishra. I didnt know he was the one to make Chameli, another movie I really liked. I havent seen 'Dharavi' made by him. I hope they have it on netflix. But I cant stop singing praises for Mr. Mishra right now. This movie will pop into my head everytime I crib about Indian movie-makers not being able to characterize well and have a good screenplay. Dil Maange More SudhirBhai !!

Indian girl's one-rupee suicide

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian girl's one-rupee suicide: "Her mother scolded her and when she returned from work found her daughter hanged from the ceiling with a sari.

'She wanted just one rupee... but her mother could not give her the money due to poverty,' government official Nakul Chandran Mahato told the Reuters agency."

FDA OKs Generic Versions of AIDS Drug - Yahoo! News

FDA OKs Generic Versions of AIDS Drug - Yahoo! News: "AZT, an anti-retroviral drug that is also known as Zidovudine, helps prevent the AIDS virus from reproducing in the body. It is often used in combination with other medications to treat an
HIV infection.

Generic versions of the drug have previously been unavailable in the United States because patent or market exclusivity restrictions prevented them from being marketed. Now that those patents have expired, versions of drug manufactured by Roxane Laboratories of Columbus, Ohio; Ranbaxy Laboratories of Guragon, India, and Aurobindo Pharma of Hyderabad, India, can go on the market."

Career Person

I dont know how we should be defining the term career person. But I think someone who is career oriented in life i.e. someone who takes their profession very seriously should be called a career person. Now if someone who goes to work because that keeps you mentally active and it adds to the household purse, can he/she be called a career person.
When i started this note I was thinking that a lot of women are not career people. As I stop to think, I realize a lot of men are similar too. I would appreciate/respect someone at work is they were dedicated to the work they do and feel proud about it. They can find humour and amazement in the work they do.

Respect = vulnerable + !(insult)

If you make someone vulnerable but not insult him/her at that moment they will build respect for you. Have seen it happen on many occasions.

Aside :
Realize that many of us do not drive a conversation. When I heard Judge Roberts ( nominee for the US Supreme court chief justice) defend himself I really felt like a dunce when it comes to the art of conversation. Socrates was on the other extreme with his conversations being exagerrated more to make a point than to be emulated as a manner of conversation.
On the other hand if we talk like Judge Roberts we will create an impression of being a cunning person. Which has very few positive connotations if any.

Female bats keep it in the family

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Female bats keep it in the family: "Female greater horseshoe bats share male mates with their mothers and grandmothers, Nature magazine reports.

This serves to bind families together, but avoids the dangers of inbreeding.

The females live together in groups segregated from the opposite sex, but gang together to prowl for males once the mating season arrives.

Scientists from the University of Bristol and Queen Mary in London made the discovery using genetic techniques to construct family trees for the bats."

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush takes storm responsibility

BBC NEWS | Americas | Bush takes storm responsibility: "US President George W Bush has said he takes responsibility for government failures in dealing with the effects of Hurricane Katrina.
Mr Bush said the storm had raised questions about the administration's ability to respond to natural disasters as well as terror attacks.
The president has faced heavy criticism for the administration's apparently slow reaction to the devastation.
The overall confirmed death toll in the hurricane-affected states is above 600."

I hope he doesnt take this opporutnity to up his spending on stalling terror attacks in anticipation.

US Open Finals

Wow... did you hear the commentary on CBS. They could have might as well pulled Federer's pants dopwn and started su%^#ng on him. Idiots, How can you be so damn partisan ? I watched the last 2 sets on mute. This is total injustice to the game.

hitachihip_500x375

hitachihip_500x375,
originally uploaded by jujubi.

Hitachi is trying to sex up the marketing for its new one-inch Microdrive, which is expected to give smart phones, MP3 players and PDAs up to 60GB of storage.

Texas company demos carbon nanotube TV | CNET News.com

Texas company demos carbon nanotube TV | CNET News.com: "In a few years, TVs based on these concepts will begin to challenge rear-projection TVs and plasmas in the market for large TVs (50 inches plus), according to Applied Nanotech CEO Zvi Yaniv.

In conventional CRT TVs, an electron gun fires electrons at a phosphor-coated glass divided into pinpoints to create images. The electrons, however, need to disperse in a large vacuum, which is why TV tubes are so large and bulky.

In so-called field emission display (FED) TVs, electrons get filtered into an array of thousands of tips only a few nanometers wide, which then deliver electrons to illuminate the screen. As a result, these TVs can be thin, like LCDs or plasmas.

Another advantage comes in cost. The tips, whether nanotubes or diamonds or some other material, in a FED are printed onto the display glass. By contrast, LCD panels and plasma screens require more ornate manufacturing processes. Decades of LCD know-how combined with the economics of electronics manufacturing mean that FED TVs won't likely challenge LCDs in the mass market. Yaniv, however, says FEDs' advantages will shine in large screens.

The printing techniques utilized were compatible with 60-inch diagonal Advanced TV and 80-inch diagonal High Definition TV formats, Applied Nanotech said."

Agassi Rocks

Beautiful athleticism by both guys. Really awe inspiring isnt it watch peopl at the peak of their performance abilities. It dawns on you as to how your body should be. Had we been in an 'uncivilized' society, people like these atheletes who would have been rocking our world in more perceptible ways.  Can we ever make machines with such efficiencies. I am very inspired :)

Someone asked me what would motivate me to go to the gym regularly (and his motivation was women) .... I think its people like Andre who would want me to be atleast reasonably fit.

Rollercoaster gets woman pregnant | The Register

Rollercoaster gets woman pregnant | The Register: "However, following a bit of beast-with-two-backs action at home in Hassloch, Germany, the couple nipped out to their local theme park where Nayade took another ride on the 'Expedition GeForce' rollercoaster - said to be one of the world's speediest.

A week later, Nayade was confirmed pregnant. Gynaecologist Dr Thomas Gent said: 'We believe that she conceived due to the G force of the rollercoaster ride.'

The end result of this happy tale is Leandro Elias, now the proud owner of a free lifelong ticket for all the theme park's rollercoasters. �"

Good Will Hunting

Now theres a movie I call good Cinema.
Robin Williams Rocks and Matt Daemon is very cool too .... Good screenplay and beautiful dialogues.

Do I burn the same amount of calories walking as I do running?

Do I burn the same amount of calories walking as I do running?: "That depends -- are you exercising for a set distance or a set time? If you want to cover three miles running or walking and burn as many calories as possible, walking is the way to go. However, if you have an hour set aside to either walk or run, running will burn more calories.

We'd like to tell you we tested this out, but we're born cube jockeys, so we found a page from WebMD instead. The esteemed Dr. Dean Ornish explains that when you run, you burn mostly sugar and carbohydrates. However, when you walk for a long enough distance (walking to the refrigerator doesn't count), 'it gives your metabolism time to switch from burning carbohydrates to burning fat.' The page goes on to explain that, like a lot of bodily chores, walking is most effective when it's done consistently (kind of like wearing deodorant).

So that settles that, but how do cycling and swimming measure up? According to this graph, cycling burns two to five times fewer calories per mile than either running or walking because it's not a weight-bearing exercise. The benefits of swimming depend a lot on your proficiency and what type of stroke you use. This calorie calculator does a nice job of showing the differences.

And keep in mind, if none of these activities sound good, you can always start chewing celery."

The Graduate

I saw this classic American movie and didnt find it so attractive. Its like one of our old Shekhar Suman movies. I dont know why there's so much hype around it. Good music I must say.
Today evening I also so Red Eye. Nice thriller, very uplifting and that girl is awesome. Good screenplay too.

Charlie Rose Sucks

This guy cant really talk can he ?  He is not half of what Vir Sanghvi is.
He seems so unprepared. I dont know what he is trying to say about Katrina.
The last time he had Rumsfeld on , all he did was suck up to him ... boss you are a journalist, you are supposed to ask those tough questions. package them well if you want to. make a point. Dont F@##ing do an Oprah.

BBC NEWS | Business | Inequality 'key to poverty fight'

BBC NEWS | Business | Inequality 'key to poverty fight': Fighting poverty is important for our survival. If we have poor neighbours we will have terror, epidemics, and less contribution of ideas from that section of humans.
From article : "When rich country leaders talk of fighting poverty, the emphasis is often on improving economic growth in their poorer neighbours.
But according to a new report from the United Nations, that alone will fail to produce meaningful poverty reduction.
Instead, it says, countries need to focus on reducing inequality - between rich and poor, between men and women and between regions.
Rich states also need to give more aid and improve its quality, the UN says."
"Anybody questioning whether income distribution matters might reflect on the fact that the poorest 10% of Brazilians are poorer than their counterparts in Vietnam, a country with a far lower average income," he says.

"Brazil is ranked 63 on the Human Development Index, while Vietnam is number 103.
The report also points to success in Bangladesh at reducing infant mortality - well ahead of similar efforts in high-growth countries such as China and India.
And females are often getting a worse deal than males, it says, limiting the positive effects of economic development.
In India, for example, half again as many girls die between the ages of one and five as do boys. "

Hmmm ...

"Celebrate what you've accomplished but raise the bar a little higher each time you succeed"

- Mia Hamm, Olympic Gold Medalist

Zonked

whew !! what a tiring day and I havent worked out which makes me even more sleepy.
Someone needs to study and publish productivity numbers of an average employee at these tech companies. I want an easy way to measure and improve mine.

Real Women have Curves

Beautiful Movie.
http://www.realwomenhavecurves.com/story.html


-Rajan
PS : Its not a documentary

Progress Is Seen on Flooding and Crime in New Orleans - New York Times

Progress Is Seen on Flooding and Crime in New Orleans - New York Times: "Louisiana officials, commenting on the environmental aspects ofthe hurricane's aftermath, said that 140,000 to 160,000 homes had been submerged or destroyed; 60 to 90 million tons of solid waste must be cleaned up; and 530 sewage treatment plants were inoperable. They warned that it would take years to fully restore clean drinking water.

Two developments were encouraging: a pair of major oil spills were declared under control, with one of them drifting out into the Gulf of Mexico and away from the state's ravaged coastline, and 170 sources of radiation, ranging from hospitals to pipe-welding plants, have been secured, the officials said."

Wow all the comfort enabling technologies we have are so precariously poised. It can be so quicly turned against us. All the doomsday movies arent very far from truth are they ?

Evolve ??

I went to the Wild Animal Park yesterday. Its not hard to imagine but I heard one of the trainers talk about the Cheetah and how a minor injury to their tails or legs can cause them to die. Ofcourse the Cheetah is highly unsuited to survival, with speed being the only tool at hand. Even if the other cats have better survival instincts they definitely need to be on top of their game. Very few die of old age. They need to be at an olympic atheletes level or they dont make it through life.
It seems that this is how organisms feel the pressure of natural selection. Very cozily ensconced in our human skins can we ever feel those pressures. Having understood that there is something called natural selection we can avoid something like it. We wouldnt let our old people die because they are fragile. We would try and save  Terri Schaivo if possible. We would not let a race of people suffer because they cant make it on their own. On the other hand we experiment with Cloning and gene therapy and generate chimeras in the process. So are we entering the realm of 'intelligent design'. Never has any species been so dominant in the history of the world.
Or would we evolve to have larger and larger brains since thats most critical for survival and mate selection ? Or are we going to modify ourselves intelligently ?

Did you know

I just observed our(human) gait (I am a late bloomer :(  )
I was walking towards my gate at the Austin Bergstorm Aiport. A older gentleman passed me, dragging his luggage on wheels. This part of the airport was save of the bazaar like noise. So I could here his wheels roll with a pattern, whose amplitude varied like a half wave rectified sine wave. I remembered that this is way my luggage sounds too when I lug it around. I concluded that how we move is that, we move the left side while the right is stationary and then we we change sides.

lug²    ( P  )  Pronunciation Key  (l g)
v. lugged, lug·ging, lugs
v. tr.

1. To drag or haul (an object) laboriously.
2. To pull or drag with short jerks.
3. To cause (an engine, for example) to run poorly or hesitate: If you drive too slowly in third gear, you'll lug the engine.

Aside ever wondered why Emperor Penguins walk the way they do. They save energy this way, because they move in a pendulum like motion and the swivel to one side gives them energy to swivel to the other side and move ahead. [Animal Planet , could be my motivation to spend for cable :)) ]

Signals and me

How we take signals is as much a function of our understanding us as it is of the person giving out those signals ?
The comprehension of the signals is a look up in my data-base. So to reduce error I can
 a) Increase my database (but the req might be infinity ... aaahhh this is what God is  ;) )
 b) Stop valuing my comprehension unless I am required to act immediately (which is a rare case). Will this leave me unprepared for the worst case.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China outlaws sexual harassment

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | China outlaws sexual harassment: "China has for the first time outlawed sexual harassment and domestic violence, establishing gender equality as a national policy.
The amendment was passed by the top lawmaking body, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.
Women will now be able to take legal action against abusive husbands and those who harass them.
Correspondents say women in China are still far from equal and domestic violence remains a huge problem"

WTF ? People just take women for granted if the society has no rules. What was it in the way some of us were brought up that we automatically couldn't ever abuse women.

More from article "A national survey of 8,000 women, carried out by Sina.com and Chat magazine, found 79% of female respondents had experienced sexual harassment - compared to 22% of men.
Meanwhile, 40% of women working for private or foreign firms had been targets of harassment compared to 18% of those in state-owned companies, a study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences found.
But it will take a lot more than legislation to change deeply ingrained attitudes towards women that go back over two millennia, our correspondent says. "

Born into Brothels

I am watching 'Born into Brothels' right now (Sunday morning 3:30 am). There is this part where Zana the maker of the movie is trying to get these kids of sex workers into good schools and the school authorities reject them outright. WTF?
What bothers them ? Is it that the upper strata will stop sending their kids to this school anymore ? Will this have a negative effect on the kids who arent exposed to sex let alone prostitution. I think we dont have teachers good enough to be able to assimilate the experiences of these unfortunate kids into their lessons. Is there a solution to this problem in India. The kids seem so smart and eager to learn, its a shame we cant give them this opportunity as a society. I know it sounds like BS coming from a guy in front of the TV on his reclining chair, but then I am really pissed with the state of affairs. Sending money back home isnt the only solution, but thinking that I can go back and solve everything is even more nonsensical. I am just sour right now.

-Rajan
 

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Chimps Found to Conform to Cultural Norms

Science & Technology at Scientific American.com: Chimps Found to Conform to Cultural Norms: "We humans aren't the only ones who want to fit in. Researchers have discovered that chimpanzees, too, preferentially adopt their fellow chimps' way of doing things.

Andrew Whiten of St. Andrews University in Fife, Scotland, and his colleagues studied three groups of captive chimpanzees and the ways in which they assumed different techniques for obtaining food. The first group contained a high-ranking female that had been taught to retrieve food from an apparatus by using a stick to push a blockage away, thus freeing the food item. The second group also contained a female expert, but one that had been instructed to lift the blockage with the stick in order to release the treat. The third group was a control group and did not have a local expert. When the experts were reunited with their respective groups, the other chimps watched their activities at the food apparatus intently and learned to apply either the poking or lifting technique themselves. Members of the third group, lacking an expert to guide them, failed to figure out the contraption on their own."

Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination - Yahoo! News

Robertson Calls for Chavez Assassination - Yahoo! News: "Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming 'a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.'"

Phantoms in the Brain

This is THE most awesome book I have read.
Dr.V.S.Ramachandran.

Kimberly Brooks: Phase Change - Yahoo! News

Kimberly Brooks: Phase Change - Yahoo! News: "Before I was married and when I was dating, I remember that when I left the house, there was this sense of anticipation..maybe I would meet the man of my dreams today on the train to work or literature class? It was all very random.

Now the man on the train is on the cell phone or blackberry. I hear they’re also thinking of allowing cell phone coverage on airplanes. That is one place, even if people have access to the internet, that no one can reach you by cell at least. But to be accessible then too would be too much. Not to mention having to listen to everyone else’s conversation! The Internet has made everyone connected to everybody all the time. I hear and read that, for the most part, teenagers and young adults don’t “go steady” anymore. Now they’re all just friends. And some of those friends get “benefits” or “hook up” -- no strings attached. Sure the dating scene has seen many changes (from the conservative 50s to the sixties, seventies etc.) and, it could be just the cycle of how people date changes. But what if it’s not? This extends beyond the realm of dating, as sure as you’re reading my thoughts right now.

I know that this isn’t a new idea. Lord knows my far out dad told us this kind of stuff during bed time stories. But what if our species is at the cusp of a phase change? When water turns to steam it stays in the form of water from 1 to 100 degrees and then, in one instant…it turns to steam. Steady transitions are not what happens in nature. It’s distinctly a phase change. And I think it’s happening to us. I wonder what will happen to this tiny planet where virtual nerves start connecting that have never connected before, and we become this pulsating globe of instantaneous thought?"

Wired News: You'll Know When You're Older

Wired News: You'll Know When You're Older: "Talk about sex tech to a 35-year-old, and it takes about three minutes for the light to switch on. 'Yeah!' she or he will cry. 'My sister met her husband online!' (Or maybe, 'My sister left her husband for a woman she met online!' You never know.)

It puzzled me why 20-year-olds weren't reacting the same way. I was totally unprepared for the blank looks and the resounding chorus of 'huh?' when I described the book.

How could a generation so saturated with both tech and sex not see how the two come together?

Then it dawned on me. These kids may be tech-savvy and sex-obsessed, but they don't have the same need for sex tech as the older folks.

Why bother with online dating when you spend the majority of your day with your peer group?

Why look for love outside your city when you're only allowed to use the car for school and errands?

Why would a college student need the internet to get laid when she's already surrounded by hordes of intelligent young single men -- most of whom she didn't grow up with?

She'll have plenty of time after graduation to bring out the sex toys, when she and her boyfriend find jobs or attend grad school in different cities, or when she's burned out on the dating scene.

And considering their comfort level with remote interaction and online gaming, teledildonics will not seem odd at all. It will just be another option on a Wednesday night."

Congress of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Congress of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States of America. It is a bicameral institution, comprising the House of Representatives (the 'lower house') and the Senate (the 'upper house'). The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. Seats in the House are apportioned among the states on the basis of population. However, in the Senate, each state is represented by two members regardless of their population. There are a total of 100 Senators, who serve six-year terms. Both representatives and senators are directly elected by the people but in some states the governor may appoint a temporary replacement when a Senate seat is vacant.

The United States Constitution vests all the legislative powers of the federal government in the Congress. The powers of Congress are limited to those expressly enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people, except where the Constitution provides otherwise. Significant powers of Congress include the authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, to levy taxes, to establish courts inferior to the Supreme Court, to maintain the armed forces, and to declare war. Insofar as passing legislation is concerned, the Senate is fully equal to the House of Representatives. The Senate is not a mere 'chamber of review,' as is the case with the upper houses of the bicameral legislatures of most other nations."

Wired News: Even Geeks Need a Breather

Wired News: Even Geeks Need a Breather: "All geeks burn out on tech once in a while, and even gamers need the occasional break from the controls. (Really.)

But how many couples confuse technology burnout with relationship burnout? You start projecting the anti-IM sentiment onto the person on the other end of the dialog. Or you resent the friend calling you when you suddenly can't stand the sound of the polyphonic ring tone you paid $2 for.

Maybe you're not tired of the other person, you're just tired of the computer, or the webcam, or the teledildonics, or the headset you use with your Skype account. Or all of the above.

Modern technology makes long-distance relationships viable in ways previous generations can only envy. And yet having the ability to communicate constantly leads to the expectation of constant communication.

If the flood of e-mail and text messages suddenly slows to a trickle, it's understandable that the other person will start to feel anxious and confused.

One friend, wise in the ways of long-distance love, says, 'You can be in love with them and still just want to come home and watch TV. It's when they take it personally, as a rejection or a sign you don't want to be with them, that the trouble starts.'"

Scientific American: Mindful of Symbols

Scientific American: Mindful of Symbols:
Kids cannot grasp the concept of an image or a symbol being a link to the actual object. They think the pointer is the object and has the same properties of the object. From article : "The confusion seems to be conceptual, not perceptual. Infants can perfectly well perceive the difference between objects and pictures. Given a choice between the two, infants choose the real thing. But they do not yet fully understand what pictures are and how they differ from the things depicted (the "referents") and so they explore: some actually lean over and put their lips on the nipple in a photograph of a bottle, for instance. They only do so, however, when the depicted object is highly similar to the object it represents, as in color photographs. The same confusion occurs for video images. Pierroutsakos and her colleague Georgene L. Troseth of Vanderbilt University found that nine-month-olds seated near a television monitor will reach out and grab at objects moving across the screen. But when depicted objects bear relatively little resemblance to the real thing--as in a line drawing--infants rarely explore them. "

Studying this is important for understanding how to educate kids less than 3 and how to communicate with them. From article: "The concept of dual representation has implications for educational practices as well. Teachers in preschool and elementary school classrooms around the world use 'manipulatives'--blocks, rods and other objects designed to represent numerical quantity. The idea is that these concrete objects help children appreciate abstract mathematical principles. But if children do not understand the relation between the objects and what they represent, the use of manipulatives could be counterproductive. And some research does suggest that children often have problems understanding and using manipulatives." Also "The victims of abuse are often very young children, who are quite difficult to interview. Consequently, many professionals--including police officers, social workers and mental health professionals--employ anatomically detailed dolls, assuming that a young child will have an easier time describing what happened using a doll. Notice that this assumption entails the further assumption that a young child will be able to think of this object as both a doll and a representation of himself or herself."

Wired News: Power Supply Is Down in the Dumps

Wired News: Power Supply Is Down in the Dumps: "In Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital city, the overwhelmed city garbage company only picks up half of the 3,500 tons of waste discarded each day; the rest is left to rot in streets and sewers.

The majority of the trash that does get collected ends up at the massive Matuail dump, a 50-acre pile of debris that is nearing capacity just 11 years after it opened."

"Next month, ground is expected to be broken on a $10 million project sponsored by Netherlands-based World Wide Recycling to scale up Waste Concern's existing composting program and turn Matuail's noxious emissions into electricity.

The agreement was facilitated by a Kyoto Protocol-designed system called the Clean Development Mechanism, which allows organizations in the developed world to claim carbon credits by supporting greenhouse-gas-reducing projects in developing countries. "

BBC NEWS | Africa | Cameroon's beer bottle 'currency'

BBC NEWS | Africa | Cameroon's beer bottle 'currency': "Beer bottle caps are being used as currency in parts of Cameroon, which is in the grips of a promotion frenzy by rival breweries.
Intense competition between beer companies has seen 20 million bottles given away since the start of the year.
The prizes, which are revealed beneath the bottle top, include mobile phones, luxury cars and of course more beer.
With a beer costing $1, some punters are using their winning bottle tops to pay for taxi rides."

I'd really like to know what economists think of this. Would a cab guy take gold from me instead of money. Isnt money the most liquid form and thus most valuable ? Ofcourse he would if the bullion markets are on a rampage. But something beer bottle-caps ?? So this is indication of the public feeling that these caps have a sustained and liquid value in the current economy.

BBC NEWS | Business | Silver surfers ready to storm shops

BBC NEWS | Business | Silver surfers ready to storm shops: "With the online shopping market set to grow to £60bn by 2010, retailers could be throwing away billions if they fail to invest in the older online shopper, says research by the Future Foundation.

Already nearly one in every four adults in the UK has bought goods online in the past six months, double the amount three years ago.
And now, almost two out of every three of those coming up to retirement are using the web, compared with just a third in 2001, signalling an impending silver surfer shopping bonanza.
According to the report, commissioned on behalf of The AirMiles Travel Company, online sales will keep accelerating, accounting for 20% of total retail spending by 2010.
In the meantime, a growing number of shoppers aged from 55 to 64, traditionally ignored by e-tailers, are eagerly jumping on the internet bandwagon.
Researchers warn a revolution in online shopping fuelled by the elderly consumer is only five years away."

Chang and Eng Bunker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chang and Eng Bunker - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Chang Bunker and Eng Bunker (May 11, 1811–January 17, 1874) were the twin brothers whose condition and birthplace became the basis for the term Siamese twins (conjoined twins). They were born in Siam (now Thailand), in the province of Samutsongkram, to a Chinese father (Ti-eye) and a half-Chinese/half-Cham mother (Nok).

The Bunkers were joined at the sternum by a small piece of cartilage. Their livers were fused but independently complete. Even though 19th-century surgical technology was not nearly as advanced as it is today, they could have easily been separated. In 1829, they were discovered in Siam by British merchant Robert Hunter and exhibited as a curiosity during a world tour. Upon termination of their contract with their discoverer, they successfully went into business for themselves. In 1839, while visiting Wilkesboro, North Carolina with P.T. Barnum, the twins were attracted to the town and settled there, becoming naturalized United States citizens.

The Bunkers settled on a plantation, bought slaves, and adopted the name 'Bunker.' They were accepted as respected members of the community. On April 13, 1843, they married two sisters: Chang to Adelaide Yates and Eng to Sarah Anne Yates. Chang and his wife had ten children; Eng and his wife had 11. In time, the wives squabbled and eventually two separate households were set up. The twins died on the same day in 1874."

iTunes Hum at Motorola, Apple

iTunes Hum at Motorola, Apple: "Motorola (MOT:NYSE - commentary - research) and Apple (AAPL:Nasdaq - commentary - research) have finally agreed on a stage to raise the curtain on the much-anticipated iTunes phone.

The iPod-inspired music phone -- which Motorola twice pulled from introductions earlier this year, apparently under orders from Apple chief Steve Jobs -- will debut in the U.K. next month.

The planned venue is a four-stage 'V Festival' concert sponsored by Virgin Mobile U.K. on Aug. 20-21, says American Technology Research analyst Albert Lin.

Virgin Mobile U.K. will be one of the first telcos to offer the phone, says Lin.

A Virgin Mobile U.K. rep sa"

BBC : Nuclear fuel cycle

BBC NEWS | In Depth | 2003 | Nuclear fuel cycle | mining: "Introduction :: Mining uranium

Uranium is the basic raw material of both civilian and military nuclear programmes.

It is extracted from either open-cast pits or by underground mining. Although uranium occurs naturally all over the world, only a small fraction is found in concentrated ores.

When certain atoms of uranium are split in a chain reaction, energy is released. This process is called nuclear fission.

In a nuclear power station this fission occurs slowly, while in a nuclear weapon, very rapidly. In both instances, fission must be very carefully controlled."

Freescale Investments

Investor's Business Daily: Breaking News: "Investors have taken note. In the past 12 months, shares of Freescale (FSL) have climbed more than 75% while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index ($SOX) has risen just over 20%.

Now, however, analysts are beginning to wonder how long the honeymoon can last beyond its July 2004 initial public offering.

Although the Austin, Tex.-based company has proven it can make chips with wide profit margins, Freescale needs to now show it can post better revenue growth, they say. That's because the gross margin story -- pitched by Freescale during pre-IPO road shows and heeded by the bulls -- may be losing steam.

'We think investors are poised to pay more attention to sales dynamics than to rely solely on gross margin,' Shawn Slayton, an SG Cowen analyst, wrote in a recent research note.

And on Thursday, Goldman Sachs cut its rating on Freescale to neutral, arguing that the stock price may have peaked. The stock, which fell nearly 2% after that downgrade, ended the session at $24.60, leaving it down more than 7% this month."

Bizarro Pentagon, Torture is Rewarded While Sex is a Firing Offense

Arianna Huffington: At Rummy's Bizarro Pentagon, Torture is Rewarded While Sex is a Firing Offense - Yahoo! News: "Here’s all the proof you need that the lunatics have taken over the Pentagon and DoD asylums (that is, if the lunacy of their Iraq policies hadn’t already convinced you):

Four-star General Kevin Byrnes, the third most senior of the Army’s 11 four-star generals, was sacked over allegations that he had an extramarital affair. Meanwhile, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse scandal, is being considered for promotion to, yep, four-star general.
Talk about your utterly perverted priorities."

"Something doesn’t add up. Would the Army really can a four-star General with 36 years of service, three months shy of his retirement, because he screwed someone other than his wife... in the middle of a war? We are at war, right? No wonder speculation is mounting that there has to be more -- much more -- to this story than is being told.

Was the affair with a man? Was the man underage? Did he not only ask, but also tell? Was, say, one of the Bush twins involved? Did the illicit liaison entail incredibly kinky behavior... something involving a dog leash, women’s panties, fake blood, a Koran, and a Lynddie England mask?"

PBS, BBC Move Forward With Internet-TV Projects

PBS, BBC Move Forward With Internet-TV Projects: "Two of the world's most important public broadcasters have seen the future of TV and it is on the broadband Internet.

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), and the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) have disclosed plans to launch Internet-only programming, starting this September.

The PBS Internet TV show, dubbed 'NerdTV,' is touted as the 'funniest' show on TV with the 'nerdiest people in high-tech.' BBC is going to offer feature films over the Internet -- as well as one-week old broadcasts of its news and public affairs programming.

The PBS offering is generating the most publicity, as the show is going to be hosted by Robert X. Cringley, the nom de plume for PBS TV's legendary technology columnist, famed industry insider and author of the book, Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can't Get a Date.
TV for and by Nerds

Expected guests for the show include PayPal (Nasdaq: PYPL) founder Max Levchin; the original Macintosh programmer Andy Hertzfeld; and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) Latest News about Sun Microsystems' co-founder Bill Joy.

'NerdTV will have an uninterrupted hour with the smartest, funniest, and sometimes, nerdiest people in high-tech,' said Cringley. 'These are people who have changed our lives, whether we know it or not. Through NerdTV, a broad audience of enthusiasts and students will gain a much greater understanding of these techies and the context of their lives.'

The hourly show will debut on September 6, and will have an initial run of 13 weeks. "

Vorbis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Vorbis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Vorbis is an open and free audio compression (codec) project from the Xiph.org Foundation. It is frequently used in conjunction with the Ogg container and is then called Ogg Vorbis. It is often mistakenly called just Ogg (or 'OGG').

Vorbis was started following a September 1998 letter from Fraunhofer Gesellschaft announcing plans to charge licensing fees for the MP3 format. Soon after founder Christopher 'Monty' Montgomery began work on the project, he was assisted by a growing collection of other developers. They continued refining the code until a stable version 1.0 of the codec was released on July 19, 2002.

The latest version is 1.1.1 released on 2005-06-27. Source code for this release is available from the official Vorbis web site, while many Windows binaries can be downloaded at Rarewares."

jimpoz.com - Pablo Picasso

jimpoz.com - Pablo Picasso: "When I work I relax; doing nothing or entertaining visitors makes me tired."

LiveScience.com - Fiddler Crabs: World's Pickiest Mates

LiveScience.com - Fiddler Crabs: World's Pickiest Mates: "When female fiddler crabs pick a mate, size does matter. The size of his house, that is.

Females spend big chunks of time looking for a male with a perfectly-sized burrow, which will give their offspring the best chance of survival.

“The size of the male’s burrow affects the development time of his larvae,” said Christine deRivera of the University of California, San Diego. “A burrow of just the right size allows larvae to hatch at the safest time, the peak outward nighttime flow of the biweekly tidal cycle.”

The males attract mates by standing in front of their burrows and waving their enlarged claws at females passing by.

“The California fiddler crabs use a lateral wave that looks much like a human beckoning 'come here’,” deRivera said. “It also seems to serve as a 'come hither' signal, as a male waves, standing at his burrow entrance, and interested females come over.”

The females check out the burrow, and if it appears suitable, the two crabs will plug up the burrow, mate, and incubate their eggs, which will later hatch and release tiny crab larvae.

Most animal species sample just a few potential mates, but female California fiddler crabs are much pickier. In deRivera’s study, females checked out male suitors and their bachelor pads an average of 23 times before making a final selection. One particularly choosy crab visited 106 male burrows, fully entering 15 of them, during her hour-long search."

Innovation Futures

Innovation Futures: "What is Innovation Futures?

Innovation Futures is a prediction game. Similar to fantasy stock market games, this one lets players trade on all kinds of events. You predict the outcome of various news events we supply. So the more you know, the more likely you are to predict correctly and win. And it's not just how much you know. You can benefit from the bad predictions of others.

How does it work?

Here is an example: Consider a market about the question �Will the NASDAQ make a gain or a loss for Week 31?�. Let's suppose that you want to invest in the outcome �-20.01 to -30.00�. The trading price for the corresponding 'contract' is currently x$1 ('x$' is the game's play money). If this outcome ultimately occurs, then each of the contracts you bought will yield x$100 and you will have earned x$99 per contract (100 - 1)."

Trading Cricket for Jihad - New York Times

Trading Cricket for Jihad - New York Times: "In his book 'Globalized Islam,' the French scholar Olivier Roy points out that today's jihadists have a lot in common with the left-wing extremists of the 1930's and 1960's. Ideologically, Islamic neofundamentalism occupies the same militant space that was once occupied by Marxism. It draws the same sorts of recruits (educated second-generation immigrants, for example), uses some of the same symbols and vilifies some of the same enemies (imperialism and capitalism).

Roy emphasizes that the jihadists are the products of globalization, and its enemies. They are detached from any specific country or culture, he says, and take up jihad because it attaches them to something. They are generally not politically active before they take up jihad. They are looking to strike a vague blow against the system and so give their lives (and deaths) shape and meaning.

In short, the Arab world is maintaining its nearly perfect record of absorbing every bad idea coming from the West. Western ideas infuse the radicals who flood into Iraq to blow up Muslims and Americans alike."

Failure vs Fallure

Jim Collins on Charlie Rose 8/4, talks of  failure vs fallure. In case of failure you give up because you make a decision that you are no longer able to pursue the goal. Wheras Fallure on the other hand is when even when all the chips are down you still make a whole-hearted attempt and then still Fail. How many times do we have a fallure ? Thats a nice attitude to have.

Muslims being targetted in London

Is this normal reaction ?
   I wouldnt want it to be but I guess it is.

What can the muslims do ?
  Well not much at this point of time.

What can the leaders do ?
A lot to integrate muslims in the mainstream British community in the future and soothe peoples minds at present. We need more 'leaders' in our societies.

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Kung Fu? Meet Physics

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Kung Fu? Meet Physics: "Einstein Year

Somebody at the Institute of Physics, inspired by it being Einstein Year which aims to heighten awareness of the relevance of physics, had the bright idea of putting them together. The mission? To work out just what it takes to chop wood with your bare hands.

Cain, 25, said: 'Kung Fu is about force so I had an understanding of it with my physics background.'

So what did she think about being asked to take part in the exercise?

'At first I was surprised. It was an unusual idea but an interesting one. The prospect of breaking blocks of wood is not something I have really thought about.'"

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | E-mail and snail mail united

BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | E-mail and snail mail united: "Post offices in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh will take a customer's handwritten letter and computer scan it. Then the letter can be e-mailed to remote, high-altitude post-offices in this Himalayan region.

From there, the e-mails are printed out and then taken by hand to their destinations - many of which are located in almost inaccessible mountain areas such as the Lahaul, Spiti, Kinnaur and Pangi valleys.

At over 3,500 metres above sea level, some of them are the highest inhabited places on earth.

They remain cut off from the rest of the world for more than half the year due to heavy snowfall over the high passes - which makes it tough for the postal authorities to reach them.

'In small towns this tailor-made service can also be accessed by customers from their home or office via the internet, by buying pre-paid cards from post offices at a cheap 10 rupees (£0.12) per letter,' a top postal department official told the BBC."

Rajan : I like it when local babus can use technology to make progress.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Dubai women storm world of work

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Dubai women storm world of work: "When Fatma Mohamed Haj, 21, decided she wanted to train as a radiologist, her family objected.
She would have to touch men she barely knew, which is forbidden in the traditional Islamic culture of the United Arab Emirates.
And she would have to work nights in a society where it is frowned upon for young women to be out after 10pm.
But she argued her case and is now seeking her first job.
A UAE national living in Dubai, she is one of a generation of young women at the forefront of fast-paced cultural change."

Lets hope this attitude is contagious.

Tiffinbox: Rucksacks In Nottinghill

Tiffinbox: Rucksacks In Nottinghill: "You gotta love this. If you are brown, in or around London, don't carry a rucksack/backpack or wear a large coat. And definitely don't run with any of the aforementioned items in hand onto a bus or attempt to get onto a train. You are asking to be harassed.

I am apalled by this. The thing that gets me the most is about 'looking a bit foreign.' Hello! London is quite likely the most cosmopolitan city in the world [thanks to their colonial past, but that's another post]. Are they going to stop just everyone who isn't WHITE and interrogate them? I called this a long time ago when this whole Iraq mess was brewing; the civil liberties of brown and non-white people was going to take a major hit. And it's happening. Slowly but surely our travel will be restricted, our intentions questioned and lives rebuked."

The New York Times > National > Image > Falling Foam

The New York Times > National > Image > Falling Foam

Madeup women

Should liberation of women mean, women not being obsessed with their makeup kits?
I see women who always have makeup on their face and men hardly do. In general women are more concious of their appearance than men. Is this because they are not confident of their other abilities/strengths.

Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times

Why Bill Gates Wants 3,000 New Patents - New York Times: "All software published in the United States is protected by strong copyright and trademark protection. Microsoft Excel, for example, cannot be copied, nor can its association with Microsoft be removed. But a patent goes well beyond this. It protects even the underlying concepts from being used by others - for 20 years.

As recently as the 1970's, software developers relied solely upon copyrights and trademarks to protect their work. This turned out rather well for Microsoft. Had Dan Bricklin, the creator of VisiCalc, the spreadsheet that gave people a reason to buy a personal computer, obtained a patent covering the program in 1979, Microsoft would not have been able to bring out Excel until 1999. Nor would Word or PowerPoint have appeared if the companies that had brought out predecessors obtained patent protection for their programs.

Mr. Bricklin, who has started several software companies and defensively acquired a few software patents along the way, says he, too, would cheer the abolition of software patents, which he sees as the bane of small software companies. 'The number of patents you can run into with a small product is immense,' he said. As for Microsoft's aggressive accumulation in recent years, he asked, 'Isn't Microsoft the poster child of success without software patents?'

So why didn't Mr. Bricklin file for a patent for VisiCalc in 1979? Patents for software alone were not an option then. He consulted a patent attorney who said that the application would have to present the software within a machine and that the odds were long that the ploy would succeed. The courts regarded software as merely a collection of mathematical algorithms, tiny revelations of nature's secrets - not as an invention, and thus not patentable.

The legal environment changed not because of new legislation, but by accident. One important ruling here and another there, and without anyo"