thought

subtle changes that people make in their behavior don't go unnoticed...

What will you name your child?

We get letters (3) from google blog

"Walid Elias Kai, a Ph.D. in search engine marketing, is, it must be said, an avid fan of our company. Dr. Kai, who is Lebanese, and his Swedish wife Carol live in Kalmar, Sweden, where their son was born on September 12. His name? Oliver Google Kai."

And here is the website of Google-Kai

funny quote

"There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full."
-- Henry A. Kissinger

what!!!!!

Body hanging from tree mistaken for Halloween decoration from CNN

"The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said."

hmmmm

China, India Superpower? Not so Fast! from YaleGlobal Online
"Both China and India are still desperately poor countries. Of the total of 2.3 billion people in these two countries, nearly 1.5 billion earn less than US$2 a day, according to World Bank calculations. Of course, the lifting of hundreds of millions of people above poverty in China has been historic. Thanks to repeated assertions in the international financial press, conventional wisdom now suggests that globalization is responsible for this feat. Yet a substantial part of China's decline in poverty since 1980 already happened by mid-1980s (largely as a result of agricultural growth), before the big strides in foreign trade and investment in the 1990s. Assertions about Indian poverty reduction primarily through trade liberalization are even shakier. In the nineties, the decade of major trade liberalization, the rate of decline in poverty by some aggregative estimates has, if anything, slowed down. In any case, India is as yet a minor player in world trade, contributing less than one percent of world exports. (China's share is about 6 percent.)
What about the hordes of Indian software engineers, call-center operators, and back-room programmers supposedly hollowing out white-collar jobs in rich countries? The total number of workers in all possible forms of IT-related jobs in India comes to less than a million workers – one-quarter of one percent of the Indian labor force. For all its Nobel Prizes and brilliant scholars and professionals, India is the largest single-country contributor to the pool of illiterate people in the world. Lifting them out of poverty and dead-end menial jobs will remain a Herculean task for decades to come."

quote

The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.
-- Mata Hari

How long has it been since India performed this way?

India wrap up comprehensive win from cricinfo

"Tendulkar's opening gambit, though, was the talk of the day. Returning after a six month lay-off, Tendulkar arrived with a gambler's instinct only to hit the jackpot with whatever he tried. There was risk, frenzied spells of play and cheeky improvisation, but all this was amid magical strokeplay reminiscent of the boy genius who charmed all in the last decade. He charged down the track to Chaminda Vaas, scampered perilous single after perilous single, was occasionally beaten by seam movement and change of pace, chipped a few that just eluded fielders, and attempted some audacious shots.
In between all this were some stomach-churning moments: a thundered six over midwicket, a classical straight-drive off the front foot - with a high elbow, minimum follow through and slight nod of the head a few moments after bat struck ball - a cheeky paddle-sweep off Vaas, when he read the line and beat the fielder to perfection. Fifty off 50 balls, momentum seized, bowlers hassled, fielders guessing, captain experimenting, crowd in a frenzy ... welcome to Tendulkar territory.
He soon shifted to a lower gear, but the experiment to promote Pathan to No.3 was working spectacularly at the other end. He fed off Tendulkar's aggression and announced his arrival with a superb pulled six off Vaas. Once the spinners came on, he began to soar. Tillakaratne Dilshan was dismissed for two fours and a six, Upul Chandana for a four and two sixes. The straight boundaries were peppered with some crisp lofted drives as Pathan, who raced to a 41-ball fifty and went on to outscore Tendulkar soon after, increased the tempo.
The fall of both Pathan and Tendulkar in quick succession gave Sri Lanka a small window of hope but Dravid's silken dismantling of their attack left them gasping. Dravid is arguably the best finisher in one-dayers today and his shot selection in the slog overs was simply impeccable. He brought up his fifty off 47 balls, mainly through some judicious strike rotation, but launched into a splendid blitz at the death and ended on 85 off just 63. If you can end an innings with a sequence that reads `four, two, four, two, dot, four, four' and rattle the Sri Lankans into elementary fielding errors, you have surely done a cracking job."

:(

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity. ~John Ruskin

You must have met one!!!!

Nutty Professors from The Chronicle

"The absent-minded professor becomes more difficult to handle, however, when his behavior verges on the dysfunctional. All vocations attract certain personality types; academe appeals particularly to introspective, narcissistic, obsessive characters who occasionally suffer from mood disorders or other psychological problems. Often, these difficulties go untreated because they are closely tied to enhanced creativity, as can be the case with obsessive-compulsive disorder, major depression, bipolar disorder, and the kind of high-functioning autism known as Asperger's syndrome.
According to the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic criteria, those with Asperger's syndrome will often manifest "marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction," a "failure to develop peer relationships," a "lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people," and a "lack of social or emotional reciprocity." In addition, those with Asperger's may be preoccupied with "stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest" that are "abnormal either in intensity or focus"; they may stick to "specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals"; they may manifest "stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms," or a "persistent preoccupation with parts of objects.""

Mandir Break(that is what I call it)

Bare feet, cold marble floor, insense smell, flicking diyas, kids walking around, multitude of colors, and ofcourse Gods & devoties that is what I associate with a mandir.
But there is nothing like standing there eyes closed while the pooja is going on and just concentrating on the shloks that are being chanted. For that short duration mind does not wander around it feels that the shloks are just washing away on your soul. Or the time that I just sit at the mandir... it seems like a break form all that is going on. Kind of a fresh starting point collecting all the thoughts.

thought

Strange as life is, it just needs a crack in the strong walls that you have build to walk back in with all that you seems to have successfully thrown out..........

NPR

I am getting addicted to Health and Science section on NPR and ofcourse All Things Considered...

Creation vs Evolution (again)

Tracking How Evolution Theory Came to Be from NPR (Edward Larson's Interview)

History of teaching evolution in public school in US. Very very good interview.

String Theory?? Extra Dimensions?!

Theoretical Physicist Lawrence Krauss from NPR
Interview of Lawrence Krauss. Very intresting... and abstract.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_theory