Drug violence alters the flow of life in Mexico -

IHT and LA times report on the increasing crimes due to drug trafficking in Mexico. Its a really disturbing trend.
The LAT report has a map and some graphics that help.


Mexican President : Felipe Calderon.

http://iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=15754843 --- Anything, in fact, can be dangerous. The father of another kidnapping victim said courting had substantially changed these days. One of the man's two sons had broken up with his girlfriend. Another boy, with ties to traffickers, started dating her. One day last year, men dressed in black arrived at the man's house and took one of his sons away, grabbing the wrong son by mistake. He has not been heard from ever since. All this is not to say that Mexicans are paralyzed with fear. Thousands were scheduled to march through the streets of Mexico City and numerous other cities on Saturday night to light candles and reclaim the streets. Still, many have become inured to things that once would have alarmed them. They are doing things, like having chips inserted in their forearms so they can be tracked if they are kidnapped, that they never could have imagined during more sedate times. The police have complained of onlookers gathering at crime scenes with cameras to snap photos of the corpses. "The worst thing that can happen is for us to become accustomed to the dramatic daily count of deaths and kidnappings caused by narcotics assassins," El Universal said in a recent editorial.

Intel Shifts Future Core™ Processors Into Turbo Mode

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20080821comp.htm ---
1. Intel researchers are also investigating how millions of tiny micro-robots, called catoms, could build shape-shifting materials.
2. Rattner demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel's research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robot hand. The technique is a novel sensing modality used by fish but not humans, so they can "feel" objects before they even touch them. The other demonstration was a complete autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can recognize faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as "please clean this mess" using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipulation, perception and artificial intelligence.

If these guys are real. I am going love living in the future. isn't this inflection a nightmare for the SciFi writers ?

[thanks http://www.technologyreview.com/]

Khushwant Singh @ Hindustan Times

[ Article ]

What a wonderful job we have done:
Made J and K two states from one.
Experts in rescuing life from being dull,
We have made the police and people fight pitched battle
And turned Hindus and Muslims into warring people.
And why not?
For, at stake is a forest plot
So valuable and so great
That for it, we can burn the whole state,
Burn the whole country, if need be.
For, if it is given to the shrine, the Valley will die
And if it is not given, the holy Shiv ling to heaven fly.
(Contributed by Kuldip Salil, Delhi)

Game On Emily is Not Real: The End of "Real" Actors?

I didn't know this is how far animation has improved. Also I didn't know what the term "uncanny valley" meant (The perception that computer-generated faces look less real as they approach human likeness)

[2min video]
http://blogs.pcworld.com/gameon/archives/007483.html --- I have seen the future of computer-generated video game animation, her name is Emily, and Emily is not real -- or is she? See for yourself in the following clip just released from 3D facial animation company Image Metrics, and which I read about in The Times Online this morning.

[Source : slashdot]

How do whales and dolphins sleep without drowning? : Scientific American

I didn't know such mechanisms exist. Turning of half the brain and one eye. How crazy can nature be ?

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-do-whales-and-dolphin&print=true --- While sleeping, the bottlenose dolphin shuts down only half of its brain, along with the opposite eye. The other half of the brain stays awake at a low level of alertness. This attentive side is used to watch for predators, obstacles and other animals. It also signals when to rise to the surface for a fresh breath of air. After approximately two hours, the animal will reverse this process, resting the active side of the brain and awaking the rested half. This pattern is often called cat-napping.

Attaching an audio which was the original source of this search : A moment of science

Secretary Bird

Have you ever seen this bird before. I hadnt. Its very interesting. Its popular in Africa to the point of being in some countries' coat of arms.
Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_Bird
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w3Co-U526c&feature=related

No higher resolution available.

Source: I was looking at pictures on the website of an interesting photographer called Vandit Kalia. His site was pointed to me by Sharadha (thanks).
http://www.vanditkalia.com/VanditKalia/Galleries/Pages/Birds.html#20

PS: If you get interested in Vandit's page, note the reason for his calling himself a "restless photographer". I would think it applies to me too, although I am more restless than an engineer.
Quote "For me, travel - be it to the mountains, the national park or a far-off location - is all about exploring the region and uncovering its secrets (and no, reading the Lonely Planet doesn't count): in other words, breadth.  On the other hand, photography is all about spending time in a given location, waiting for the light and "the moment": in other words, depth. These two impulses pull in different directions.  Hence the Restless Photographer." 

Vandit's profile picture :

Most amazing lyre bird

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y
The lyre bird can reproduce a lot of sounds. Its found in Souther Australia.The first time I am seeing it, if you already know about this, I am sure you'll enjoy seeing it again.
Towards the end of this 2.5 min video we see the bird immitating the sound of a camera, a car alarm and a chainsaw. This is a wild bird. What the hell !!!!!

Alicia Sacramone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4Dx9PgGcfI
Wow this young girl has so much pressure on her. Its unfair !!

Humans on earth

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/louise_leakey_digs_for_humanity_s_origins.html

If short on time, watch min 12 to min 15 of this video. So apparently we average life of a hominid species is about a million years and we have existed for about 200,000 years. If we can survive long enough its mind boggling to even think of how different we will be.
Kind of humbling to see and hear people talk like this, isn't it ?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Spotlight on Egypt's marriage crisis

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7554892.stm --- She says her target is not Egyptian men but a tradition known as "gawwaz el-salonat" (living room marriage), where a stranger is brought to the family home and the daughter must decide whether to marry him on the basis of this brief encounter. "People who go for a picnic need to know each other a little longer than that - let alone make a lifelong commitment."

India Together: As inequalities rise, the moral commons is vanishing

If you think we Indians have a cultural heritage of apathy towards poor, Rajesh Kasturirangan tries to formalize it and explain it.

http://www.indiatogether.org/2008/jun/rkr-moralcom.htm --- Unlike disaster situations, where media images can compel our sympathy, daily life does not evoke strong reactions so our sympathy has to be constructed out of other inputs. Whatever these inputs might be, they should make it possible for us to see the world in terms of the 'other'. We need a natural catalyst for grouping human beings of different backgrounds into one moral space. And one of the best resources for this is 'proximity'. We need a natural catalyst for grouping human beings of different backgrounds into one moral space. For it to be natural, the 'moral grouping principle' should be one that has a foundation in human psychology. And one of the best resources for this is 'proximity'. From the Gestalt psychologists onwards, we know that human beings group objects and events that are close to each other in space and time. Our ethical capacities are partly based on perceptual capacities. My claim is simple: common physical spaces and common actions in our daily lives will lead to common moral spaces and the construction of a moral commons. In other words, we need common activities of work and play and common spaces for recreation and worship.

Woman's work - Kalpana Sharma - India together

I didnt know this impressive stat. Otherwise the article just talks about the fact the women are trying to find work in areas thought to be man's work. And that steady incomes from both partners is becoming important to provide for a family.

http://indiatogether.com/2008/jul/ksh-work.htm

With the increasing costs of living, more women will have to find paid employment to ensure the survival of poor as well as middle class households. Such paid employment will also contribute to the economy in general. According to The Economist, (April 12, 2006) the increase in female employment in the rich world has been the main driving force of growth in the past couple of decades. Those women have contributed more to global GDP growth than have either new technology, or the new giants, India and China. Add the value of housework and child rearing and women probably account for just over half of world output.

Women's contribution to the economy has always been undervalued. Now economists are putting a value to their work, paid and unpaid. Of course, there are still many people in this country who believe that women should do only women's work and that they should step out of their homes for paid work only if it is absolutely necessary. But the changing nature of our economies and the pressures of survival amongst all classes, except the very rich, are already denting such perceptions.