Tekken borrows from Tollywood

Heihachi gets his moves and kicks from none other than our very own Rajini!

My New Favorite Theme Song

It used to be "Life keeps bringing me back to you" from Just Shoot Me.

But now its :: I'm No Superman.

& yes I'm aware how little everyone cares about this.

Clinton got a Bl*wj*b [NOT work safe]

Funny, only because its true, check out this clip.

Definitely NOT WORK SAFE.

Sreesanth Vs Nel in SA

This is the dhoom machale version of the duel!

Congratulations!

To all the newly weds:
A hearty congratulations from the blog! We need to catch-up over drinks, get all the details and make plans for new years.
Prem - in other words this means the ball is in your court ;)

For everyone who wondered what the constantly changing numbers on the Union Square billboard meant

It's interesting as well as pointless.

New tax collection scheme

Check out what the Bihari babu's came up with to boost their tax collection revenue!

Dead woman wins county race

This is funny and goes to show how dumb/ignorant/stupid people can be. Also poses some questions on the electoral format. This woman had been dead for nearly 2 months prior to the elections and no one decided that a replacement was in order? And if people knew that she was dead why would they vote for her? Was the other candidate such a sucker!!!! AMAZING!!!

r u ready?

rutgers is no longer a footnote in college football as just the birth place of the game. it has played well enugh to be actually ranked nationally ... 13 for now !

today v played louisville, ranked 3 nationally with one of teh best offense .... amazing game ! we were down 25-7 in the 2nd quarter ... but the rutgers defense lived up to its reputation ... rutgers won 28-25!!!

Scarlet Fever @ espn

 

The single most important image ever taken

Ganked from "Geeks are sexy"

The most important image ever taken. (Video)

U2 and Green Day

I like the video... still trying to decide if its a hopeful song, or exactly the opposite.

Check it out here : The Saints are coming.

How Dare he!!!!

Check this article out. It infuriated me to no extent. How dare he say take care of ur issues before you talk to pakistan..which basically translates to "why dont u get a few more army and bsf people not to mention the civilians killed in other parts of the country and let us wreak some more havoc in Kashmir."
The govt needs to really stepup a notch to this statement and send a strong message out.
thoughts?

This is how you're supposed to do it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/12/technology/12tube.html?ex=1318305600&en=19fb928929883b16&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

SAIFF

South Asian International Film Festival is a few days away.
I will unfortunately miss it - but you guys might want to check it out:
There's a number of movies being shown as well as after parties blah blah blah...

http://www.saiff.org/2006/index.php?p=program

The Real problem with Islam..

From the point of view of Umair from Bubblegeneration, here's the Real problem With Islam

Charlie Rose interviews Top Indian Leaders

Thought i'll share this link from google video with you guys. Tata was rhetorical, Shaw was awesome and Agarwal was representive of the true India!

Super Funny Video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7255918198934385460&q=shakira+%2B+hips+dont+lie



this video is toooooo funny...a lil long but funny..

Don't Miss Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden is coming to the Continental Arena.
I think there might be a couple of Iron Maiden Fans in this group (nudge Ant)

Tickets go on sale on the 12th.

The show is on the 13th of October....which is obviously a Friday.
And so fittingly,their concert is on Friday the 13th.

Cingular Sucks Boycott Cingular

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14125254/wid/11915829?GT1=8486

Check this out. Its outrageous. Just cos someones on the TDMA network cingular will charge them 5$ per month for their services over and above their monthly bill. That is a freakin ripoff.
The cell phone industry here sucks..screwed up phones. Ridiculous contracts. No sense of customer and brand loyalty. If I could live without it now, I would get rid of it.
How dificult is it to convert the TDMA to GSM. Why should the consumers pay cos cingular hasnt gotten their act together of converting analog to digital. If the terrain doesnt support GSM or its too expensive to replace TDMA with GSM then im sorry these ppl are in the wrong business. Its not as if the stupid taxes from the govt arent enuff. You pay nearly 5$ a month to the govt out of ur cell phone bill and ur service provider taxes you on the 39.99 + 5$...imagine that..that extra portion of the tax is in their pockets anyways and with over a million subscribers they cant afford to support a few tdma customers..thats bull shit..
boycott cingular i say!!!

Cracked me up... Sugar Daddies...

Check this out... definitely not work/public space safe.
I thought it was hilarious...

Sorry....

I apologize in advance, and I will delete this later, but:

Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him (Oh, man, this is so bad, it's good).....

A super calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

There are 20 more where that one came from...

13 TZAMETI

movie reco from ant ...

trailer

Synopsis: Twenty-two-year-old Sebastien (Georges Babluani) leads an impoverished life with his immigrant family constantly struggling to support them. While repairing the roof of a neighbor's house, he overhears a conversation about an expected package which promises to make the household rich. Sensing the opportunity of a lifetime, Sebastien intercepts the package which contains a series of specific instructions. Following the clues, he assumes a false identity and manages to slip through the grasp of the enclosing police as he ventures deeper and deeper into the countryside. The closer he gets to his destination and the more people he meets along the way, the less he understands about what he is looking for. Ultimately, he comes face to face with a ring of clandestine gamblers placing bets on the outcome of a multi-player, high stakes tournament of Russian roulette.

Directed by newcomer Gela Babluani, 13 TZAMETI is a winner-take-all thriller, where an unfortunate young man is transformed into Contestant #13 with no way out save his luck.

TxTdrop

If you're addicted to text messages or have friends who are (ahem) check this out: TxtDrop
I know there have been a few in the past that did this, but this seems like the easiest I've seen in a while :)

6 degrees of separation

is the world really that small?
apparently in the original experiment conducted by stanley milgram in '67 only about 5% of the letters reached their destination .... ummm the ones that reached had 6 links in the chain. in '03 letters were replaced by emails and instead of the 96 ppl used by milgram the new study had over 60,000 participants from 166 countries. this time around 3% of the email chains reached their target. the median chain length was between 5 and 7. looks like IF u can reach someone, u culd on an avg do it with just 6 degrees of separation.



 

The real heroes

This article just goes to prove how amazing this city is!! Parts of it may be too hard to digest. Definitely screwed my head up.
I think the govt owes it to the people of Bombay to find out who has been behind all these blasts and make an example so horrible that no one will even think of attempting such a thing ever ever again. I say get the army and air force and run over the mofos next door. Bomb Afghanistan, its time the givt showed some balls. Enough of peace keeping attempts, time for peace is over.

Does Bombay need a Giuliani

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1751857.cms

What do you guys think?

Rusell

R.Peters the indian comedian that you've probably all seen the video for will be at the Beacon Theatre in November.Tickets will go on sale soon on Ticketmaster if anyone is interested.

Corporations Cannot Be Charitable...

Henry Ford said "My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business."

The court said Bullshit

Dodge v. Ford Motor Company

Rang De Basanti

Has anyone seen it?
What did they think?

Procrastinators Haven...

Dedicated to the title of this blog...

journey to the rooftop

the journey is possible now, much more easily ... 30000 ppl working for 3 yrs, with temp plunging down upto -35 celcius ... rising to abt 16600 feet the train to tibet travels in an atmosphere rarefied enough to warrant pressurised train cabins!

first public run is on the first of next month ..

pic story @ bbc

:(

This is not good at all.

Black and White Pictures...

I'm sure this happens to everyone...

"I'm a peanut farmer, but I used to be the President of the United States of America."

Incidentally the quote above isn't from the article but the comments, so pls read all the way thru.

Karaoke

To Torn by Natalie Imbruglia - its a mime's versions!

The age old debate of moral policing in Mumbai takes a twist

Posted by Ananth:

 

Shwets & I were googling my name and came across this blog which had a post by my namesake. The topic under discussion was on public display of affection in Mumbai. So of the posts are hilarious…

 

http://mboard.rediff.com/board/board.php?boardid=getahead2006apr20msg&page=30

 

Cheers!

Another Interesting Read On Corporates Governing Political Decisions

Posted by Ananth:

http://www.redherring.com/Article.aspx?a=6793&hed=Carlyle's+Way

Another feather in the cap for Darwin

Some of you may have already read this news story. I find it fascinating.

A few days ago, thousands of miles away from us in Israel, miners were rock digging through the ground in a quarry. They hit upon a cave that seem to have been isolated from the world for a long time. One intelligent bloke decided to call in the scientists in case there might be valuable data hidden. And then it all began ...

First the scientist came, then the historians and archaeologist - their numbers growing by the day. They linked the cave back to thousands of years ago from pre-historic times. The entrance to this cave was blocked completely from sunlight. A cave shut out from our world as we know it. A unique world within our world - A laboratory for evolution to take its path.

The Discovery: 8 species of animals resembling crabs and scorpions never to have known to have existed were unearthed from the cave and inspected. Their DNA patterns are different from any species recorded so far.

The fascinating finding: All 8 species were found to be completely BLIND. Blocked from sunlight for thousands of years, eyes didn't have a role to play. How they mutated, adapted to their environment and survived remains a mystery that is currently being solved.

Typically evolution takes millions of years to manifest itself in humans and animals who have a lifespan of decades. The lifespan of crabs is about 3-8 years implying that a few thousand years sees many more generations of crabs evolving. Its possible that the smaller lifespan and extreme conditions could have accelerated natures work on these creatures over the past thousands of years.

This may lead to years of debate and rhetorical claims from both evolution and creationism parties but seeing nature work and discovering it will always fascinate me. Thats another feather in the cap for Darwin and motivation to watch X-3!

PS: This is my version of the story. Yahoo's article made a lame read so I had to let my interpretation of events flow through the keyboard.

The RIAA's latest:

Heavy use of Gibberish!

Link leads to an article on TechDirt.com regarding an interview with the big wigs of the RIAA.

depraved politics

ummm ... is that a tautology?

nyway .... read the transcript of arjun singh's interview by karan thapar on the obc eductaion quota ... singh came out totally ignorant and arrogant ... the only thing i liked about the interview was ... that it took place, questions were asked - very blunt and straightforward q's at that ... don't know if the public protest will change anything.

Manhattan solstice

"Next Sunday and on July 13, the sun will fully illuminate every Manhattan cross street (not the curved or angled ones) on the street grid during the last 15 minutes of daylight, and it will set on each street's center line."

should make for an interesting view ...

Free Market:

The true price of a gallon of gasoline is whatever it costs the nation to secure it.

Good post by Barry Eisler ex Goverment Operative turned author on Free Markets particularly concerning gas prices.

India - leaders in plagiarism??

A recent report from the Commission on Intellectual Property and Health (CIPIH), appointed by the World Health Organization (WHO), claims to show that a high standard of protection for intellectual property in pharmaceuticals is hurting healthcare in the developing world.

The report recommends that "[c]ountries should seek through patenting and licensing policies to maximize the availability of innovations" -- but it does not agree with the usual understanding that reliance on the free market itself offers the greatest innovations. Instead, it states that "[c]ountries should provide in their legislation powers to use compulsory licensing ... where this power might be useful as one of the means available to promote, inter alia, research that is directly relevant to the specific health problems of developing countries."

While it shies away from a direct attack on patents themselves, the report's bias in favor of generic drugs is clear. As it notes, "[m]ore than three decades of reverse engineering "on-patent" drugs (process engineering) has made Indian companies extremely proficient in speeding generic drug development." Granted, India's new patent law is far better than having no patent law for drugs (as the country did for 30 years until recently), and Indian drug companies are playing an increasingly important and responsible role in the global market. Certainly, all would agree on the need to reduce the cost of drug development -- a concern of Western companies as much as of the patients who need their drugs.

But the report also commends India's new patent law for providing that only compounds with demonstrated "superior efficacy" may receive full patent protection, to avoid "copycat" patenting that in the Commission's view only extends patents to remove competition from cheaper generic. Even if this were true (a large and unwarranted assumption), to prove "superior efficacy" companies would presumably have to go through clinical trials -- at huge expense -- which would therefore have to begin early in the patent term. While generic manufacturers are busy preparing to market on the first day after the end of patent exclusivity, the original company is therefore effectively denied the right to enjoy the full fruits of its labor. Rather than choosing to invest the "monopoly profits" from the patent on inherently more risky new discoveries, therefore, the company would likely focus its attention on refinements to existing products, which would lead to an overall loss in innovation. So the law discourages the very risk-taking so necessary to scientific innovation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My thoughts on this article went far from the actual issue of generic vs patented drugs, but to something I have always felt Indians are famous for... plagiarism!
- from copying / collaborating at school from others or books
- 'Young Indian author accused of plagiarism'
- to largest generic drug company in the world 'Ranbaxy' from India

Weren't we supposed to be the more intelligent ones in the world!!

Forwards...

Forwards are great on a day like today:

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R's: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.

WORLD CUP PREVIEW: 32 teams in 32 days

Jamie Trecker / Fox Soccer Channel Jamie Trecker previews 32 teams in 32 days!

Each day between May 8 until the day before the start of the FIFA World Cup on June 9, FoxSoccer.com analyst Jamie Trecker will preview each of the 32 teams playing in this summer's FIFA World Cup in Germany. World Cup Rosters

Picked this up from axe, an interesting website that helps you organize your calendar for the world cup schedule according to the teams you want to follow. Windows or Mac...
http://www.worldcupkickoff.com/

the paper trail

worlds largest charity ... founded for the benefit of a single family ... devoted to interior design :o)

Flat-pack accounting

ummm, well its the tale of ikea and its innovative ownership structure

Google Fight.

I want a nice clean fight. You hear me....

American(a)

And I quote: "So I finally got arrested for dancing..."

RHCP

For all you people headed out to Chicago in August, check out the new RHCP album titled Stadium Arcadium. It is awesome.
Before you run off and download it off your respective file sharing application, here's an email from Flea (yes he's a member of the band.)

Sorry to hear that he doesn't seem to share my opinion of how to monetize an event that will definitely take place anyways given modern trading platform limitations around intellectual property especially music.

Again since they are touring as part of a promotion for this album they will certainly be playing a large section of this album, and it really is a worthy album. So give it a spin or two.

Trivia: The world's oldest written recipe, inscribed on a clay tablet in about 1,800 B.C.

is for BEER.

Read on:
http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/2006/04/25/beer-best-drink-cx_np_0426featB_ls.html?boxes=popstories&boxes=custom

Interesting & Disturbing

The strange case of the man who took 40,000 ecstasy pills in nine years ·

Usage increased to 25 tablets a day at peak· Memory problems and paranoia may be lasting David McCandlessTuesday April 4, 2006The Guardian

Doctors from London University have revealed details of what they believe is the largest amount of ecstasy ever consumed by a single person. Consultants from the addiction centre at St George's Medical School, London, have published a case report of a British man estimated to have taken around 40,000 pills of MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, over nine years. The heaviest previous lifetime intake on record is 2,000 pills.

Though the man, who is now 37, stopped taking the drug seven years ago, he still suffers from severe physical and mental health side-effects, including extreme memory problems, paranoia, hallucinations and depression. He also suffers from painful muscle rigidity around his neck and jaw which often prevents him from opening his mouth. The doctors believe many of these symptoms may be permanent.

The man, known as Mr A in the report in the scientific journal Psychosomatics, started using ecstasy at 21. For the first two years his use was an average of five pills per weekend. Gradually this escalated until he was taking around three and a half pills a day. At the peak, the man was taking an estimated 25 pills every day for four years. After several severe collapses at parties, Mr A decided to stop taking ecstasy. For several months, he still felt he was under the influence of the drug, despite being bedridden.

Hallucinations
His condition deteriorated and he began to experience recurrent tunnel vision and other problems including hallucinations, paranoia and muscle rigidity. "He came to us after deciding that he couldn't go on any more," said Dr Christos Kouimtsidis, the consultant psychiatrist at St George's Medical School in Tooting who treated him for five months. "He was having trouble functioning in everyday life."

The doctors discovered that the man was suffering from severe short-term memory problems of a type usually only seen in lifetime alcoholics. But evaluating the full extent of his condition was difficult as his concentration and attention was so impaired he was unable to follow the simple tasks involved in the test.

"This was an exceptional case. His long- term memory was fine but he could not remember day to day things - the time, the day, what was in his supermarket trolley," said Dr Kouimtsidis. "More worryingly, he did not seem aware himself that he had these memory problems."
With no mental illness in his family and no prior psychiatric history, the doctors concluded that his unique condition was direct result of his intense ecstasy use.

"This is obviously an extreme case so we should not blow any observations out of proportion," says Dr Kouimtsidis. "But if this is what is happening to very heavy users, it might be an indication that daily use of ecstasy over a long period of time can lead to irreversible memory problems and other cognitive deficits."

For 10 years, MDMA has been suspected of causing these kinds of effects in heavy users. It is thought to be due to its disruption of the regulation of serotonin, a brain chemical believed to play a role in mood and memory. It remains unclear whether these effects are the result of permanent neurotoxic damage or just temporary reversible alterations in the brain.

A study today in a special MDMA issue of the British Journal of Psychopharmacology, suggests long-term side-effects may be temporary. The researchers from the University Of Louisiana could find no significant relationship between depression and recreational ecstasy use.
In the case of Mr A, a structural MRI brain scan failed to show any obvious damage or atrophy in his brain. However, these results, says Dr Kouimtsidis, are difficult to interpret. "A scan of this type is not sensitive enough," he said.

Such limitations in brain scanning technology, along with ethical and legal barriers to giving MDMA to human test subjects, have limited direct observation of the drug's effects in humans.
Instead, scientists have had to use recreational drug users as subjects in their studies. Conclusions from this are often flawed because few, if any, drugs users use ecstasy in isolation.

Cannabis user
Mr A was also a heavy cannabis user, and when he was encouraged to decrease his use, his paranoia and hallucinations disappeared and his anxiety abated. But his memory and concentration problems remained, leading the doctors to suspect that these may be permanent disabilities.

When he was admitted to a specialist brain injury unit and put on anti-psychotic medication, he did start to show some improvement. "Unfortunately, he discharged himself before we were able to complete the assessment," says Dr Kouimtsidis. "We continued to support him. But he started to use cannabis again and he dropped out. We tried to re-engage him but we lost him about a year ago."
The Guardian made several attempts to find the man without success.

Effects of ecstasy
MDMA is one the most intensely studied recreational drugs in history. But despite thousands of research papers and studies, scientific evidence on the side-effects remains inconclusive.

Death by overdose
Undoubtedly, large amounts of ecstasy can lead to over-heating which in turn, in rare cases, can trigger fatal heat stroke. Many factors contribute: number and strength of pills taken, environment, alcohol-consumption, body weight - but women seem more at risk. The bulk of ecstasy-related deaths around the world have been young women.

Water-poisoning
Panicking users, fearing they are overdosing, drink too much water and provoke hyponaetraemia (water-poisoning). Leah Betts died after drinking 14 pints in just 90 minutes. The recommended amount of water to drink per hour is one pint.

Toxic reactions
Much of the reports of toxic reactions are muddled with overdose or water-poisoning deaths. There is no clear evidence that some people suffer allergic reactions to ecstasy. However, around 10% of Western users do lack a key liver enzyme CYP2D6 needed to break down MDMA. This may make them more sensitive to the effects and more prone to accidental overdose.

Depression
Many weekend users report a mid-week mood dip. This is suspected to be related MDMA's effect on serotonin, but hard evidence is lacking. In heavy users, dips can turn to crashes and depression. However studies suggest this effect reverses after a 2-3 month abstinence.

Positive effects
Users still claim "long lasting improvements in self-awareness, self-esteem, openness and insight into personal problems", reports the study from the University Of Louisiana. In the US, research continues into the use of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Lalu comes to upper castes' help

NEW DELHI: Amidst the raging controversy over OBC quota in elite educational institutions, Railway Minister Lalu Prasad on Friday said he was not averse to granting reservation to children from the upper castes. "I have no no objection for provision of 5 to 10 per cent reservation to upper castes children by amending the Constitution", he told reporters on the sidelines of a Conference of Railway General Managers here. On the question of reservation to OBCs, he said Mandal Commission, which is in operation, was very clear and this should be implemented for the OBCs. "There is already reservation for the SCs/STs. Mandal Commission, which is being implemented, is very clear in providing reservation to OBCs. It should be implemented", he said. Prasad's comments assumes significance as he is one of the prominent leaders of the OBCs who came to the fore in post Mandal era and who ruled Bihar for 16 long years espousing the cause of the backwards.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now we can break down the admissions to everything in quotas... Upper - 10%, Lower Left 20%, Lower Right 20%, Other Lower Regions 20%... Middle Class - go fuck yourself

Deviant Art

this is my friend's gallery. pretty cool stuff he does...

http://the-blacklisted-one.deviantart.com/gallery/

R I P

R I P

India News

On 5/3/06, *Ananth Ramanathan* <
ARamanathan@wbresearch.com wrote:

Pramod Mahajan of BJP was shot and killed by his brother.
Its sad, cos for all the fluff politicians put out, he was
one of the better ones.

*From:* Premkumar Iyangar [mailto: pkiyangar@gmail.com]
Over 2 weeks old news. Apparently his bro was mentally
unstable when he shot him over some propoerty dispute..Dunno abt him
being better or worse. he was a good speaker..

prem.

On 5/3/06, Ananth Ramanathan
wrote:

Of the pack, he did do some decent work. He died today, was shot about 10 days ago.

Also Baroda is in a state of emergency, riots and curfew.

Was reflecting on my own ignorance to what's goin on back
home

On 5/3/06, Mavryx

Hmm, I wasn't aware that he was dead.. or what was happening
in Baroda.
Feel bad and weird, and somewhat more nomadic than I did two
minutes ago. Funny how my first reaction is how does this affect
me...


On 5/3/06, Premkumar Iyangar

speaking of news...dunno if anyone read the story of an indian
engineer beheaded by taliban militants in afghanistan and threatening to
kill all indians in afghanistan if they did not leave the country asap..
prem.

Flickr Badge

Threw a Flickr badge into the sidebar. Sorry was just playing around, feel free to change it as you like, or remove it completely.
The current tag is "adaywithoutimmigrants". A quick change in the template code can change that flickr badge to anything that you like.

Immigration Rally

So I went and watched the immigration rally in the city this week.
Anybody have any thoughts on it? Does anyone on this blog even care?
Just curious how we're dealing with it.

Fwd: hey its a better country

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ananth ramanathan <r_ant@hotmail.com>
Date: Apr 18, 2006 12:34 PM
Subject: hey its a better country
To: Undisclosed Rect.

Since I dont have access to the blog...

my few postings:

1.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=WVPH5RGK2MUT5QFIQMFSFFWAVCBQ0IV0?view=BLOGDETAIL&grid=P30&blog=asia&xml=/news/2006/04/05/blasia05.xml

2. whatever forward there is below...

enjoy

Government of India has a online Grievance forum at
http://darpg-grievance.nic.in/
The government wants people to use this tool to highlight the problems
they faced while dealing with Government officials or departments like
Passport Office, Electricity board, BSNL/MTNL, Railways etc etc.

I know many people will say that these things don't work in India, but
this actually works as one of our colleague in CSC found. The guy I'm
talking about lives in Faridabad. Couple of months back, the Faridabad
Municipal Corporation laid new roads in his area and the residents
were very happy about it. But 2 weeks later, BSNL dugged up the newly
laid roads to install new cables which annoyed all the residents
including this guy. But it was only this guy who used the above listed
grievance forum to highlight his concern. And to his surprise, BSNL
and Municipal Corporation of faridabad was served a show cause notice
and the guy received a copy of the notice in one week. Government has
asked the MC and BSNL about the goof up as its clear that both the
government departments were not in sync at all.
So use this grievance forum and educate others who don't know about
this facility.
This way we can at least raise our concerns instead of just talking
about the 'System ' in India.
SPREAD THIS MESSAGE
--- End forwarded message ---


on behalf of ant... and because I'll lose track of it otherwise.

Mortal Kombat- Desi Ishtyle

Check this out ppl..super funny!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZLY0Sj-144&search=punjabi%20vs

munch @ moma

saw the edvard munch exhibition at moma today. ummm, don't know how one can be so utterly depressed and in love with death. well he is not around to answer, his paintings are - good paintings at that. if the name doesnt ring a bell, its the same painter from norway famous for the "scream" painting - the one typifying exististential angst. the scream painting got stolen in 2004, old west bank robbery style - at gun point from the museum. at display in moma is the first one he drew (with which he wasnt happy) plus lithographs for the famous one.
followed that up with a peek of modern contemporary architecture from spain. vibrant designs transforming the landscape of spain, felt much better after all the death and destruction.

The Inside Man

Just saw The Inside Man. Im not gonna give out the story..But EVERYONE HAS TO WATCH IT. Its a phenomenal movie. Denzel's performance: phenomenal, Jodie Foster: waste of airtime
Clive Owen: just too cool!!!..
dialogues are great, direction A+....oh and btw the movie starts with "Chhaiya Chhaiya"...

Check out this smart ass ... funnnny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFinnE9Y8Vc

Again keep up the volume

Indian spring break

Keep the volume on ....

Thank heavens I came here - it could so easily have been me!

Niraj

What the hell is wrong with Dravid

Anyone following the last test between India and England must be cursing the living crap out of Dravid for his bad decision making. We've known Dravid to be the most humble players in the world but his decisions in this test have been simply atrocious.
He wins the toss and elects to bowl, just cos he took 3 pacers in the squad. None of whom performed..They bowled well in the second innings and got a target of 313...Then he sends the most consistent batsman in recent times Pathan (surprised?..its true) to open the innings as a night watchman..stupid freakin move again to expose him in the last few overs..what happens hes out and we are a good batsman down..especially considering the fact that neither sachin nor sehwag have been performing...i think sehwag needs to be dropped...hes taken his place in the team for granted and seems like sachin has the same problem..
313 is not a huge target on the bombay pitch but it wud be a miracle if we do end up winning..

on a lighter note check out these links for the Aus-SA match highlights

http://rapidshare.de/files/15334984/Aus_5th_ODI_30_min_Aus_Inngs_Highlights.wmv.htmld=BXR0COQU
http://rapidshare.de/files/15401070/Sa_V_Aus_5th_ODI_30_min_SA_Inngs_Highlights.wmv.html

Sorry...

Have 90 minutes to burn, watch My Date With Drew.
Available in Blockbusters everywhere.

V

Go see V for vendetta... let me know what you think.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0434409/maindetails

This is hilarious!

Arabs vs the Mafia:

http://www.cnn.com/POLLSERVER/results/23733.exclude.html

Someone at CNN has a sense of humor!

Metrics

Folks,

Put in a couple of 'blog analytics' tools on this blog, just to play around - been vaguely interested in numbers, data mining, analytics etc for a while...

Anyways, if you are interested in seeing the numbers on this blog here's your two options:

http://performancing.com/rss/boondogglers.blogspot.com
Its free and rather basic.

www.blogbeat.com
mavryx/mavr-156

Much more detailed, but requires a purchase at the end of the free 30 day period.

Cheers,
Akshay

Its all about the green

Money, grass, and...

Beer haven!!!!

Wish I was here !!!! would have been one drunken kitchen!!!

blazing glory

what legends are made of ... hmmm ... u can start by checking out au vs sa 5th odi ... on a perfect batting pitch ponting raced to a century in just 71 balls .. he ended up with a score of 164 off 105 balls (9 sixes)! ... along with 81 by hussey and 79 by katich australia broke the 400 barrier for the first time in one day cricket ... 434 for 4!

now u wuld think that with such a score u r guaranteed a win ... so did the australians .. its never over untill its actually .. truly over .... the proteas come to bat second ... despite losing a wicket on the 8 ball, graeme smith responds with 90 off 55 balls, gibbs rushes to his 100 in 79 balls, finally making 175 off 111 balls ... end result ... south africa beat au by scoring 438 for 9 with just one ball to spare.

gotta see the freaking match! :o)

Ben Casnocha's 18th birthday wish

Ben C. is exactly the kind of person I'd love to have a beer with - except he's about 3 years away from legally being able to do that.

Read this post that he put up on his 18th birthday.

If you don't recognize some of the names of the people/companies etc - follow some of the links and see what they are about - not a single person on that list that I would not be interested in getting a beer with - just to chat.

18 years old and a Master Networker... things can only get better for this kid... :)

Buddies

Check out e-buddies. See if you can get involved.
Its an off shoot of BestBuddies

Gullible?

A sample of the type of information available at this fine, prestigious source of critical news is :

March 6, 2006

#posted by huertas

• The Associated Press has over 15,000 obituaries of living people on file for immediate release when the subject dies.

• Only 20 percent of suit jackets are hung on suit hangers.

• The average resume contains 2.54 grammatical errors.

• Two thirds of the world's heads of state are related within three generations to another head of state.

• Theonion.com receives more hits per day than all the local news websites in the state of Ohio.

Check out the archives for the last 2 years at www.gullible.info

30 Boxes

Check out this app:

 

www.30boxes.com

 

Fantastic calendar application!

Just wish it had an import from Outlook and my organizational problems would get a little better!

 

Virginity

Not sure if this is sad, true, funny, or just plain stupid.

BOP vs the TOP

C. K. Prahalad - the author of “Competing for the Future” published in 94 has a new book out.

“IF WE stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognising them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers, a whole new world of opportunity will open up.”

The Economist has an article entitled: Profits and poverty. Check it out.

India: Asia's Other Superpower

Check out this artcle - interesting read:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11571348/site/newsweek/

St. Paddy's day in Hoboken.

Ladies and Gents.

Saturday is St. Paddy's Day in Hoboken.
The party starts early - around noon - but its certainly an interesting day to be out and about in Hoboken.
If you havent done it before, do it atleast once - you probably won't do it again :)
The weather for the day : 35 degrees in Hoboken and will probably feel colder.
Drinks are cheap, every bar's got something going on, and tons of people everywhere.

Akshay

sete montes de Lisboa

back from the conference .. had taken two days off to see lisbon, was a bit disappointed. with cheap euro travel possible the city was literally overrun with tourists, especially over the weekend. i guess ppl dont appreciate what they have. most of the old town dated back to 15 th century, there were even a few survivors from the 12 century. well age didnt matter, the entire place was riddled with graffiti.

if u igonre the graffit at the ground level, its a beautiful city; meant for leisurly walks on cobblestoned streets and enjoying coffee (well beer too) in one of the many squares.

as to food, in setubal, the conference town, i asked the hotel abt it

me : are there any suggestions for restaurants, i dont eat meat.
receptionist at hotel : yeah, they serve meat with everything, they even serve meat with fish. but if u tell them they will not put meat in fish.

i was lucky to find a pizza hut ...

had an uneventful, though good conference and a rather eventful and strenuous return journey. always been uneasy during flight take offs and landings, stomach gets queasy. last 50 miles were the longest, 1 hr in air around airport. i think the pilot must have wanted to sit in a roller-coaster ride, cos thats how he flew, up and down, turns ... very tight turns. ummm ... stomach barely managed to handle the ride, by the end of it i was sweating ! ... the landing was greeted by passengers clapping and sighs of relief ... and the ordeal was over.

well, thats what i thought. murphy decided to step in and make me more miserable .... at immigration i was told there was a problem with my records. i was taken to a backroom and kept waiting for abt 50mins. from the snippets of conversation i heard, it looked like i didnt have a "sleeve" but my papers r allright. was very relived when the passport was handed back with the i-94 stamped, ummm ... i quickly got out of the place ... which in hindsight was not such a good idea, should have inquired abt the problem. later it occured to me that i was not fingerprinted, nor was my pic taken as i was escorted to a room.

Words to Leave by

Over the last few years you all have been extremely, fantastically helpful. I never took the time to say thanks for all the subtle & not so subtle, encouragement, direction, help, guidance, and friendship.

Life is going really well, and I cannot imagine being here today, without you folks.
Please know that your words are always welcome, even if they are things that I might not always want to hear.

By way of example, let's say it's an average adult day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging, white-collar, college-graduate job, and you work hard for eight or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired and somewhat stressed and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for an hour, and then hit the sack early because, of course, you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home. You haven't had time to shop this week because of your challenging job, and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the work day and the traffic is apt to be: very bad. So getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there, the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping. And the store is hideously lit and infused with soul-killing muzak or corporate pop and it's pretty much the last place you want to be but you can't just get in and quickly out; you have to wander all over the huge, over-lit store's confusing aisles to find the stuff you want and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts (et cetera, et cetera, cutting stuff out because this is a long ceremony) and eventually you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough check-out lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush. So the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating. But you can't take your frustration out on the frantic lady working the register, who is overworked at a job whose daily tedium and meaninglessness surpasses the imagination of any of us here at a prestigious college.

But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death. Then you have to take your creepy, flimsy, plastic bags of groceries in your cart with the one crazy wheel that pulls maddeningly to the left, all the way out through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive, rush-hour traffic, et cetera et cetera.

Read David Foster Wallace graduation speech at Kenyon College here.

Gali Gali Sim Sim

In the elevator up to my office today I looked up to see a picture of Laura Bush with Sesame Street characters surrounding her.

If this wasn't funny enough - I mean it really was - the title was "Gali Gali Sim Sim"

Which, as I read it, seemed strangely familiar to me.
Incidentally she's in India right now...
Brilliant idea - wish I'd executed it!

Read about it here.

Vast Herds of Sacred Cows...

From the Guardian:

The arguments around animal rights, Danish cartoons, Livingstone and Irving have more in common than you think

Another particularly good piece:

...in our increasingly mixed-up, multicultural world, there are so many groups that care so strongly about so many different things, from fruitarians to anti-abortionists and from Jehovah's Witnesses to Kurdish nationalists. Aggregate all their taboos and you have a vast herd of sacred cows.

Read the full article here.

Personal DNA

Folks,

Check out PersonalDNA.

Its pretty cool - well I liked the interface more than anything else.
The other interesting part of the test is the pysche you/me part of it.

Once you take the test - you can have other people evaluate you an evaluate other people.

The only catch is that you have to take the test first.
Head on over to personalDNA and take the test...

Once you're done you'll get a receipt number. Take the receipt number and then use it to "psych me".

Here's the link to psych me once you're done:

http://personaldna.com/psychyou-psychme.php?for=9b250bc79071

Note that it takes about 15 - 20 minutes....

Cheers,
Akshay

Taxi No 9211 review on rediff

Ppl,
Read the review of Taxi No 9211 on rediff.. Its really funny and pretty innovative i think.

Legal Religious Drugs

The Supreme Court recently ruled that a church in New Mexico was allowed to use DMT - an illegal narcotic - to meet God.

The case is Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao Do Vegetal

Church membership is apparently growing rapidly!

Take the survival quiz

I scored 12/17. Many flukes :)

Politics...

There are more where these came from.

I guess I could post a link to the pictures themselves, but BubbleGen is def. a good read...

Check this out

The pics are here

Good ol' Indian Justice

A classic example of how shitty the judicial system is. This was a high profile case in 1999, lost in oblivion in a few months and now after 7 yrs with shit loads of evidence and eyewitnesses, the accused were acquitted. If the powerful can get away with murder, how effective is the judicial system. This is after the prime accused surrendered.

Emotion

Satanic Verses all over again

This is Satanic Verses all over again. I dont understand where do these bastards get off with their shit. Islam has to be the most fanatical religion ever. I know it sounds like generalising and stereotyping, but the history of this religion is proof to the fact that religious Islamic factions are waiting to issue fatwas and it simply grinds my gears that they do it and theres nothing stopping them.
They worship a human being who had a 9yr old for a wife...good lord who does that...
The govts of these countries should be doing something about this.

Train de vie

train of life .... jewish community, somewhere in europe, in trying to escape nazi's, fake their own deportation .... getting hold of wagons and railway engine put together a train with few of the jews playing german guards ....

funny and lively french movie ... very upbeat music ... .. a very abrupt twist at the very end ... well literally at the very last minute ... makes u aware that life is not that beautiful ...

and if anyone is thinking of similarities to the roberto benigni oscar winner, apparently he was offered the role, he didnt respond .... two yrs later comes roberto's movie ..

worth a watch

Half a million Chickens...

& I quote...

India began the slaughter of half a million chickens Sunday, as Health Ministry officials investigated the death of a poultry farm owner from the country's first suspected case of bird flu.

Check out the rest of the article here!

Anybody know anything more?

India

I really did have a blast - wish you could all have been there.

Incidentally am going back for New Years - bookings for Goa are already in progress - anybody else interested?

Check out the pictures!

Tag lines

# Sign on a railway station at Patna:
Aana free, jaana free,
Pakde gaye to khana free.

# Seen on a famous beauty parlour in Bombay:
Don't whistle at the girl going out from here.
She may be your grandmother!

# Sign at a barber's saloon in Juhu, Bombay:
We need your heads to run our business.

# A traffic slogan:
Don't let your kids drive if they are not old enough
or else they never will be.....

# Indian Armed Forces:
Its God's responsibility to forgive the terrorist organizations.
It's our responsibility to arrange the meeting between them and god.

let it snow

diamonds ... r forever?

Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?
An old artcile, feb '82, provides an interesting peek into the making of a successful business. Its always about supply and demand, so simply control the supply and the demand! The article details the hugely successful foray of De Beers and its advert agency into mass psychology in creating a veritable public appetite for diamonds in america after the great depression and in japan after the wwII.

As for the supply, well as new mines were discovered especially in ussr, they were incorporated into teh cartel, if there is overproduction, buyback excess diamonds it does'nt control (almost took them down). Its amazing how the subliminal messages in the adverts changed over the years to induce the public into to buy larger and larger diamonds first and then smaller and smaller with the discovery of more mines with low avg. carat diamonds

You've Got Mail !

Anybody read up on the plan by aol and yahoo to charge 1/4 to 1 cent to deliver mail to ur inbox? All it does is messages from companies that pay are not passed through the spam filter. The problem is why should anyone pay if currently spam can get through the spam filters. So looks like, if they want to make money off this model, they will have to make the spam filters a lot more aggressive. There will be a lot more false positives, with legitimate e-mails from ordinary users being put in bulk/trash can.

The idea of charging isn't new, actually microsoft research has been toying with the idea of charging every e-mail sent, though the cost is in not in terms of money but the cpu time. Every senders machine has to solve a crypotgraphic puzzle as a "payment". Idea being that bulk email machines would end up spending a lot of time solving puzzles and thereby reducing spam. Haven't heard about it being rolled out though the project was completed in 2003.

Policing Google

Here's an article about Google caving in to pressure from Beijing to restrict content provided on their new chinese portal. Apparently the Chinese government didn't want links to Tianmen square and other "banned" sites to be displayed. Google obeyed and now stands accused by the US democrats of "putting profits before free speech". Don't the democrats realize that in trying to police Google they are impinging on free speech themselves. Google can block/filter/distil/change or do whatever it wants with their site or can they not? Apparently Yahoo and MS have also bowed down to the Chinese. In fact Yahoo went one step further and recently helped the Chinese government track down one of its "miscreants" who accused them of human rights violations.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4672518.stm

In a broader context: Media should be given freedom of expression but policing it cannot be ignored. Imagine if tomorrow the headlines of the ToI erroneously and knowingly said "Pakistan declares war on India". Given its massive circulation it would create immense chaos and probably bring the country to a grinding halt even if there were no war. Should we pardon them saying they can publish what they want or whip them for knowingly disrupting the country? Where do we draw the line between freedom of speech and policing the media for responsible journalism?

Anyone following cricket

The greate Indian batting collapse occurred again and we lost a Test series to Pakistan for the first time in 19 years. Why are we still ranked the #2 test team in the world after the Aussies?

2 post

to post on the blog ... just log into blogger.com ... it will show atleast 2 blogs u r asscoiated with ... 1) a haven for procrastinators and 2) ur own blog ... if u havent given ur blog a title ... it will be ur login name ... besides these two names ... is the column .. new post ... thats it ... click it ... give the post a title and the content ... and publish

anyone who has put comments on the blog are members and can create a new post

the sidebar provides the list of contibutors ... 8 of us for now ... these r teh ones who can post and comment .. and no one else ... u will also see the recent comments column in sidebar ... it gives the last 10 comments posted to the blog ... and below that recent posts list ... also if u have ur cookies enabled ... at end of every post u will see the number of new comments added

late night digrexions

And, for another tuesday of our lives, a few stray thoughts and a few general observations and a few points of view .... few my own work :o) ... if anyone read the afternoon dispatch and courier in b'bay the opening sentence would be familiar from busybee's column ... very funny ... very satirical ... he was the closest there was to jon stewart in b'bay papers :o) ...

saw the interview of another brilliant writer on stewart couple of weeks back ... kurt vonnegurt ... picked up one of his earlier bks, '65, last week from strand bkstr in the city ... "god bless you mr. rosewater" .. dont know if humor can get any darker ... bit digressive at times for my tatse .... though overall a quick read ... think i will get his latest bk too ...

looks like the portugese still take the concept of siesta and leisurely work .. very seriously ... well at least their embassy does ... will be back in the city on tuesday at noon ... to pick up my visa .. which i applied for on thursday! if it werent were for the free student travel this week by nj transit ... my travel to the city would have cost me as much as the visa itself !

hmmm ... has anyone else seen raang de basanti ? ... i found it just about ok .... though looks like i am part of a minority ... just about everyone at rutgers seems to love it ... ummm currently its more like 10 to 1 (me) ... looks like the 1 is an outlier ... or maybe i didnt ask teh right ppl :o) ... guess i missed something ... ummm .. willing to watch the first half of teh movie again if it helps ... dont think i will last thru the post inetrval session ..

just popped in to vonneguts site .... looks like even he gets the monday blues ..
http://www.vonnegut.com/

Am here...

Anybody want anything from anywhere?
Am only in BBY and Pune for a couple of days each - so let me know asap :)
akshay

of monsters and bugs

finally saw the pixar exhibition @ moma ... its supposed to be the largest pixar exhibit ever .... though was able to wrap it up in abt an 1 1/2 hr ... but make no mistake ... its amazing :o) definetly worth a see ... its @ moma till the 6th of feb ..
its spread over two floors .... and has plenty of sketches, initial and detailed plus models of all the pixar characters ... for those who havent seen the pixar short animations ... they also have 5 shorts playing continuously .... u also get a sneak peek at the characters from the upcoming animation ... cars ... hmmm ... did u know that there were over 200 types of fishes used in finding nemo .... u will find them covering an entire wall .... floor to ceiling :o)

4 New_ Comments Added

Folks,

Made a couple of small changes to this blog's template, and I'd like some feedback.

When you look at the posts now, you should see on every post the following line:

X New_Comments added (where X is the number of comments)

If you click on it - it should unfurl the comment for you to look at.

Hit refresh and the "X New_Comments added" should be replaced by "X Comments."

It works using cookies, so this might not work quite as well for those people who access this blog from multiple sites...

I'm not sure how this will respond in Safari (Purvi) or any of the other browsers you boys are using out there - it seems to work fine in Firefox and IE.

Let me know - if its cool, and people think it might be useful, we will keep it, else we can roll back to the previous version - of which Ashu has a copy in his gmail.

There are other competing solutions to this problem, the easiest of which is ofcourse to just show the latest comments in the sidebar, but it doesn't quite work the way I'd like it to as yet.

Update 1:
Minor improvement - added a dotted box around the comments - just makes it easier to see. Alternately can add any kind of box around it or line after it etc. Or just make the entire box a different color to even more clearly mark off the area - any preferences are welcome to be posted here - they will be acted upon accordingly.

Obviously all these changes are subject to member approval, but there is no other way to show you the changes other than put them on this blog. Thank you.

Update 2:
Just changed "X N_w Comments" to "X New_Comments" so that I can do a "Find" for N_w Comments to check if anything new has arrived :)

Vertical Searches, and Jobs

Most of the work that I've been doing in the last year has been in a vertical search type scenario. So I've had to look at other vertical search/aggregation sites, in an attempt to steal the best, and review what makes them work - for example: Sidestep.com

But the one I like the best : Indeed.com

One search, all jobs :)

They scrape, collect, and make searchable any job listing anywhere they can think of finding one including corporate sites, and all your standard job search websites.

Here's some of the cool stuff that comes off their website:

Apparently the demand for AJAX professionals are rising.

Apparently my time has passed.

Also - in terms of number of jobs available - NY, NY is 40th on the list...even Buffalo, NY tops it.

Interesting stuff... comes from Fred Wilson's blog

Comment Feed...

Purvi,

Would it be possible to create a yahoogroups an add us all to that, and then use that address for the comments notification address.

The reason being, that unless I scroll thru all the posts every time I come to the blog I miss the comments on the older posts... while this is still do-able given the short number of posts we have, some topics/posts might keep receiving comments as volleys are fired back and forth.

If there is any way that we can restrict the yahoogroups to ONLY receive emails from blogger we can remove any chance that someone will take the discussion of the blog into emails...

Just a suggestion, if there is a better solution to this problem, I'm all ears. I just feel like sometimes I'm missing the conversation that's happening because I can't get to the comments.

Moma- Pixar

MOMA's largest animation presentation ever - all from the Pixar collection.
Its on till the 6th of Feb I think...

Definitely worth seeing if an opportunity arises, IF you're a fan of the stuff that Pixar's created!

and a few more mug shots

first an adaptation of a scene from one flew over the cuckoo's nest ... and next a prime example from the (in)famous texas inmate collection :o)


~ ashu