Oct 9, 2005
Oct 8, 2005
Intresting read...
No News Is Good Blogging from NYTimes
"Whatever they come up with, the companies won't be competing with Office, but with Microsoft's coming upgrades to Hotmail and Outlook, as well as a new suite of collaboration software, writes Mary Jo Foley on Microsoft Watch. And here, they may actually win, thanks largely to Microsoft's famous torpidity in releasing software. "Is there a hot technology arena where Microsoft has fielded a new product first over the past few months and others are scrambling to catch up?" she asks. "I am coming up blank."
$100 LAPTOPS Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab is known for highly imaginative - some say fantastical - prognostications on the power of technology. His latest effort, though, has a certain down-to-earth quality: he wants to put laptop computers into the hands of impoverished children around the world at a cost of just $100 apiece.
Since M.I.T. announced the One Laptop Per Child effort in January, five developing nations have signed on, and talks are under way with the state of Massachusetts, PC Magazine's Web site says. At Mr. Negroponte's talk at M.I.T.'s emerging technologies conference, the site notes, "one of the more interesting moments of the presentation came during a question-and-answer session, when an individual who had set up a computer network in Guatemala described coming back to check on the machines and finding them loaded with pornography." Welcome to the developed world."
"Whatever they come up with, the companies won't be competing with Office, but with Microsoft's coming upgrades to Hotmail and Outlook, as well as a new suite of collaboration software, writes Mary Jo Foley on Microsoft Watch. And here, they may actually win, thanks largely to Microsoft's famous torpidity in releasing software. "Is there a hot technology arena where Microsoft has fielded a new product first over the past few months and others are scrambling to catch up?" she asks. "I am coming up blank."
$100 LAPTOPS Nicholas Negroponte of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab is known for highly imaginative - some say fantastical - prognostications on the power of technology. His latest effort, though, has a certain down-to-earth quality: he wants to put laptop computers into the hands of impoverished children around the world at a cost of just $100 apiece.
Since M.I.T. announced the One Laptop Per Child effort in January, five developing nations have signed on, and talks are under way with the state of Massachusetts, PC Magazine's Web site says. At Mr. Negroponte's talk at M.I.T.'s emerging technologies conference, the site notes, "one of the more interesting moments of the presentation came during a question-and-answer session, when an individual who had set up a computer network in Guatemala described coming back to check on the machines and finding them loaded with pornography." Welcome to the developed world."
Using online game to do research.
'Virtual' Virus Sheds Light on Real-World Behavior from npr.org
"A recent outbreak of a "plague" in a popular online game has scientists considering how the virtual world may provide clues to what people would do in real-world pandemics. In the role-playing game World of Warcraft, a "corrupted blood" spell killed characters and affected players in unexpected ways."
This is really really intresting point made in this program. But another step closer to living in the virtual world.
"A recent outbreak of a "plague" in a popular online game has scientists considering how the virtual world may provide clues to what people would do in real-world pandemics. In the role-playing game World of Warcraft, a "corrupted blood" spell killed characters and affected players in unexpected ways."
This is really really intresting point made in this program. But another step closer to living in the virtual world.
Reconstructed monster to understand it!
1918 Killer Flu Reconstructed from npr.org
"A flu virus that killed tens of millions worldwide after it appeared in 1918 has been recreated in the virological equivalent of the Jurassic Park story. Scientists rebuilt it from pieces of genetic material retrieved from the lungs of people who died 87 years ago. Researchers writing in the journals Science and Nature say the tightly guarded replica is even more virulent than they expected.
Yet public health officials aren't worried that the 1918 flu will again terrorize the population. It's no longer a new virus, and most people in the world have some immunity to the H1N1 virus family.
But scientists are interested in what it can reveal about future pandemics... and they say the copy of the 1918 flu bears an ominous resemblance to the bird flu virus now circulating in Asia."
Listen to the whole program to get the whole picture. This is a good prgram "All Things considered" on npr
"A flu virus that killed tens of millions worldwide after it appeared in 1918 has been recreated in the virological equivalent of the Jurassic Park story. Scientists rebuilt it from pieces of genetic material retrieved from the lungs of people who died 87 years ago. Researchers writing in the journals Science and Nature say the tightly guarded replica is even more virulent than they expected.
Yet public health officials aren't worried that the 1918 flu will again terrorize the population. It's no longer a new virus, and most people in the world have some immunity to the H1N1 virus family.
But scientists are interested in what it can reveal about future pandemics... and they say the copy of the 1918 flu bears an ominous resemblance to the bird flu virus now circulating in Asia."
Listen to the whole program to get the whole picture. This is a good prgram "All Things considered" on npr
Oct 7, 2005
anonymuncule
Karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
Shyam ka vo rangeen asamaa,
asmaa pe vo bikhre tare hazar,
un taaro se jagta asimit-ta ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
khamosh jheel ka tharha pani,
pani pe dhundli parchaiya sunaati kahani,
un kahaniyo me chalakte sach ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
dolti hawaao me pathiya vo shokh,
pathiyo pe jhilmilati boonde oas ki,
un boodho se jagta vishwas ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
rimjhim baarish ke phoaar,
phoaar ka hoota pyasi mitti se milap,
us millap ki khushboo se apnepan ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
Shyam ka vo rangeen asamaa,
asmaa pe vo bikhre tare hazar,
un taaro se jagta asimit-ta ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
khamosh jheel ka tharha pani,
pani pe dhundli parchaiya sunaati kahani,
un kahaniyo me chalakte sach ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
dolti hawaao me pathiya vo shokh,
pathiyo pe jhilmilati boonde oas ki,
un boodho se jagta vishwas ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
rimjhim baarish ke phoaar,
phoaar ka hoota pyasi mitti se milap,
us millap ki khushboo se apnepan ka ehsaas,
karni hai mujhe us ehsaas se phir mulakat.
Oct 6, 2005
quote
Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to.
-- John Ed Pearce
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher von Braun
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
-- Wernher von Braun
-- John Ed Pearce
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher von Braun
Science does not have a moral dimension. It is like a knife. If you give it to a surgeon or a murderer, each will use it differently.
-- Wernher von Braun
Oct 5, 2005
Why torture the helpless.....
"She may well be the oldest living litigant in the world.
Lakshmi alias Esther, aged 112, has knocked at the doors of the Tamil Nadu State Legal Services Authority, seeking free legal aid to reclaim her tiny Slum Clearance Board tenement at Aminjikarai in Chennai. Her date of birth, according to a copy of her horoscope documents, is February 25, 1893.
The tenement was allotted to her over 21 years ago. Seven years back, she took one Moorthy as her tenant. When he refused to vacate and, instead, tried to evict her, Esther preferred a civil suit in the City Civil Court in 1999. "
AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH even if it does not belong to her give it to her.
Oct 4, 2005
thought
Words that are never spoken, are very often misinterpreted.
version 2 --
Silence is often misinterpreted.
version 2 --
Silence is often misinterpreted.
Moral Policing in Chennai
Never thought that this will become such a serious issue...
Encroaching on individual freedoms from The Hindu
(This is a must read article. brings up a lot of things I don't which part of it to quote and what to leave out. )
"It is inexplicable that, on the one hand, Chennai wants to position itself as the gateway to the future, a city of information technology parks and a manufacturing hub that will attract money and the best talent from abroad as well as other parts of India. At the same time, it wants to clamp down on everything that has the faintest smell of cosmopolitanism about it. One of the successes of New York or London or Shanghai as cities is that they are all things to all people, and peoples. It is no one's argument that these are the most egalitarian places in the world, but they provide the space and freedom that make these great cities the magnets they are for people from differing social, cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. "
...
"How, then, to explain that a significant number of rape victims are minors? Should we now accuse underage girls of provocative behaviour? Has anybody suggested that it is time boys were brought up to think of women differently so that they can respect them regardless of what they wear? Strangely enough, even the Nazi propagandist Goebbels had more progressive views on women than those who talk about a dress code today. Writing in 1934, he argued that men trying to impose prudish moralism on society presumed that others shared their "dirty fantasies." "
But there is someone who still see the humor in the situtaion.
How dare you kiss in Chennai? from Rediff [via Neeraj]
This too is a must read. Gem of a satire.
"No, this is not an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. This is 2005, and the city is Chennai."
1984 by Orwell, is a must read too.
Encroaching on individual freedoms from The Hindu
(This is a must read article. brings up a lot of things I don't which part of it to quote and what to leave out. )
"It is inexplicable that, on the one hand, Chennai wants to position itself as the gateway to the future, a city of information technology parks and a manufacturing hub that will attract money and the best talent from abroad as well as other parts of India. At the same time, it wants to clamp down on everything that has the faintest smell of cosmopolitanism about it. One of the successes of New York or London or Shanghai as cities is that they are all things to all people, and peoples. It is no one's argument that these are the most egalitarian places in the world, but they provide the space and freedom that make these great cities the magnets they are for people from differing social, cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. "
...
"How, then, to explain that a significant number of rape victims are minors? Should we now accuse underage girls of provocative behaviour? Has anybody suggested that it is time boys were brought up to think of women differently so that they can respect them regardless of what they wear? Strangely enough, even the Nazi propagandist Goebbels had more progressive views on women than those who talk about a dress code today. Writing in 1934, he argued that men trying to impose prudish moralism on society presumed that others shared their "dirty fantasies." "
But there is someone who still see the humor in the situtaion.
How dare you kiss in Chennai? from Rediff [via Neeraj]
This too is a must read. Gem of a satire.
"No, this is not an adaptation of George Orwell's 1984. This is 2005, and the city is Chennai."
1984 by Orwell, is a must read too.
GDP vs GNH
A New Measure of Well-Being From a Happy Little Kingdom from NYTimes
"What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money.
Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation."
I never thought that happiness was equal to money... here or anywhere else. I also thought that this was common knowledge.
"But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea.
In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness."
...
"While household incomes in Bhutan remain among the world's lowest, life expectancy increased by 19 years from 1984 to 1998, jumping to 66 years. The country, which is preparing to shift to a constitution and an elected government, requires that at least 60 percent of its lands remain forested, welcomes a limited stream of wealthy tourists and exports hydropower to India.
"We have to think of human well-being in broader terms," said Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, Bhutan's home minister and ex-prime minister. "Material well-being is only one component. That doesn't ensure that you're at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other."
It is a concept grounded in Buddhist doctrine, and even a decade ago it might have been dismissed by most economists and international policy experts as naïve idealism."
...
"Bhutan, which had no public education system in 1960, now has schools at all levels around the country and rotates teachers from urban to rural regions to be sure there is equal access to the best teachers, officials said.
Another goal, they said, is to sustain traditions while advancing. People entering hospitals with nonacute health problems can choose Western or traditional medicine.
The more that various effects of a policy are considered, and not simply the economic return, the more likely a country is to achieve a good balance, said Sangay Wangchuk, the head of Bhutan's national parks agency, citing agricultural policies as an example.
Bhutan's effort, in part, is aimed at avoiding the pattern seen in the study at Harvard, in which relative wealth becomes more important than the quality of life.
"The goal of life should not be limited to production, consumption, more production and more consumption," said Thakur S. Powdyel, a senior official in the Bhutanese Ministry of Education. "There is no necessary relationship between the level of possession and the level of well-being."
Mr. Saul, the Canadian political philosopher, said that Bhutan's shift in language from "product" to "happiness" was a profound move in and of itself. "
"What is happiness? In the United States and in many other industrialized countries, it is often equated with money.
Economists measure consumer confidence on the assumption that the resulting figure says something about progress and public welfare. The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation."
I never thought that happiness was equal to money... here or anywhere else. I also thought that this was common knowledge.
"But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea.
In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan's newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation's priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness."
...
"While household incomes in Bhutan remain among the world's lowest, life expectancy increased by 19 years from 1984 to 1998, jumping to 66 years. The country, which is preparing to shift to a constitution and an elected government, requires that at least 60 percent of its lands remain forested, welcomes a limited stream of wealthy tourists and exports hydropower to India.
"We have to think of human well-being in broader terms," said Lyonpo Jigmi Thinley, Bhutan's home minister and ex-prime minister. "Material well-being is only one component. That doesn't ensure that you're at peace with your environment and in harmony with each other."
It is a concept grounded in Buddhist doctrine, and even a decade ago it might have been dismissed by most economists and international policy experts as naïve idealism."
...
"Bhutan, which had no public education system in 1960, now has schools at all levels around the country and rotates teachers from urban to rural regions to be sure there is equal access to the best teachers, officials said.
Another goal, they said, is to sustain traditions while advancing. People entering hospitals with nonacute health problems can choose Western or traditional medicine.
The more that various effects of a policy are considered, and not simply the economic return, the more likely a country is to achieve a good balance, said Sangay Wangchuk, the head of Bhutan's national parks agency, citing agricultural policies as an example.
Bhutan's effort, in part, is aimed at avoiding the pattern seen in the study at Harvard, in which relative wealth becomes more important than the quality of life.
"The goal of life should not be limited to production, consumption, more production and more consumption," said Thakur S. Powdyel, a senior official in the Bhutanese Ministry of Education. "There is no necessary relationship between the level of possession and the level of well-being."
Mr. Saul, the Canadian political philosopher, said that Bhutan's shift in language from "product" to "happiness" was a profound move in and of itself. "
Importance of the Nobel Prize!
Nobel prize's changing landscape from The Hindu
"How relevant is the prize? No one would argue that receipt ends wars or secures peace and prosperity for laureates: Kim Dae-jung, the 2000 winner, is no longer President of South Korea and peace talks with North Korea are stalled; the Dalai Lama is still in exile despite winning the prize in 1989. But for many laureates, the prize has meant not only recognition but exposure, a greater capacity for fundraising, and a stronger voice. In some cases, in countries such as Burma and Iran, the award may also have guaranteed the safety of its recipients. Perhaps the best indication that the peace prize makes a difference is the fact that it has managed to maintain its prestige. "
"How relevant is the prize? No one would argue that receipt ends wars or secures peace and prosperity for laureates: Kim Dae-jung, the 2000 winner, is no longer President of South Korea and peace talks with North Korea are stalled; the Dalai Lama is still in exile despite winning the prize in 1989. But for many laureates, the prize has meant not only recognition but exposure, a greater capacity for fundraising, and a stronger voice. In some cases, in countries such as Burma and Iran, the award may also have guaranteed the safety of its recipients. Perhaps the best indication that the peace prize makes a difference is the fact that it has managed to maintain its prestige. "
Oct 3, 2005
quotes
It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
-- Mark Twain
It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.
-- K.T. Jong
-- Mark Twain
It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.
-- K.T. Jong
:)
Sania on Time cover from IE