Category: Uncategorized

Too much happening…

Boy, its been a hectic week of news. In other words, too much happening to even formulate an opinion! Meanwhile, there are scores of theories on every issue, as always, and thanks to the www we have easy access to so many of them.

Carly ($21.4 M richer overnight, so its hard to say “poor Carly”) was fired, Bloglines (the founder has done it again, he last sold the groups company to yahoo) was acquired by Ask Jeeves, Ash was on Letterman (which I missed because of the last minute change in the date), South Africa thrashed England (like someone thankfully hit the reset button just when England thought they were getting ready to conquer the world again!), Condi Rice has hit the road immediately following her confirmation (check out the recent follow on news about Richard Clarke’s clear warning to her in Jan 2001), Howard Dean is the DNC chief (ok, but don’t give him the microphone!), Chalabi is back in favor in Iraq (man, what a change in fortunes!)…… and oh-oh, finally Harvard University chief is continuing to battle the repercussions of his “.…biological factors should be explored as a possible explanation for why fewer women than men succeeded in math and science careers” comment as heavy weights at Stanford, MIT and Princeton get ready to weigh in their views!

Note: NYT and SJ Mercury require registration, but its free.

From here and there

Some interesting links I have come across lately.

  • Interesting report about growth of blogs in China.
  • Amazing how a blog launched after the election has gained so much momentum and continues to do so. Classic example of cashing in on a defeat. Great idea nevertheless!
  • Nice short quiz to know more about yourself.

And finally, some funny junk mail (someone creative has some time on their hands!)

  1. NIIT : Not Interested in IT
  2. WIPRO : Weak Input, Poor & Rubbish Output
  3. HCL : Hidden Costs & Losses
  4. TCS : Totally Confusing Solutions
  5. INFOSYS : INFerior Offline SYStems
  6. SAPIENT : Silly And Puzzled Idiots Exploring Network Technology
  7. HUGHES : Highly Useless Graduates Hired for Eating and Sleeping
  8. BAAN : Beggers Assosciation and Nerds
  9. IBM : Implicitly Boring Machines
  10. PARAM : Puzzled And Ridiculous Array of Microprocessors
  11. C-DOT : Coffee During Office Timings
  12. AT&T : All Troubles & Terrible
  13. CMC : Coffee, Meals and Comfort

Six months of Blogging…..and to be continued

I have been blogging for close to 6 months now and I must admit that lately it has become hard to keep up. As Mr. Bush would say, “It’s hard!” There has been so much going on, finding time for blogging has been difficult. The truth though is that there has not been a single day when I have not thought about blogging. Hope to be back with more frequent posts in the not too distant future.

Meanwhile, boy, there has been so much going on — Aussies have thrashed the desis (you find video highlights here), the Bush-Kerry battle has been a dead heat, Googs are now worth close to $200 a pop (and we thought there is no money in tech stocks!), even the elusive Veerapan is no more, Arafat is fighting for his life while two leaders have been chosen to cover up in his absence (The French are thrilled that they finally beat the Americans in something), a close buddy of mine chucked his job and re-located to India with plans to chill out for a couple of years, Rajnikant is back (this time for real), and so is Mr. Bin (not surprising the tape came in from Pak). To top it off, I managed to have a get together with my close buddies from undergrad dorm. 7 out of 9 folks who happened to be in North America actually got together in the SF bay area for a wonderful weekend full of laughter and nostalgia.

Why?

  • If you observe, you’ll find a number of cops hanging around perfectly safe areas in the US. For instance, drive down Castro Street in Mountain View, California once, and you’ll find at least a couple of cops driving by. I agree there is a police station not far from there, but why do these folks have to hang out in such a safe places? Don’t we distribute our cops so areas with a higher crime rates have more cops deployed? I guess the constant joke about cops hanging out at donut shops definitely has some merit.
  • Sounds like Russia is headed for more blatant dictatorship. More terror => introduce more controls => Instill more fear => Consolidate power (patriot act, color coded threat levels, detention without hope for due process etc.). The World now has another dictator to deal with, perhaps its time to re-draw the axis of evil and think pre-emptive(!!), I suppose.
  • Most of the Indian newspaper websites (TOI, Sify, Chennaionline etc.) have started displaying those annoying, intrusive flash ads. The interesting thing is that all of them started displaying these pretty much at the same time almost like identical dance steps seen in hindi films. Ironically, there was picture of President of India, Abdul Kalam and a report about something he said about education and just when I started reading it, across flashed an ad for Golden Eagle beer!!
  • John Kerry appears to be dropping behind in the polls. Edwards is all but missing. I have never seen a mention of his name in the newspapers for several weeks now! The Bush-Cheney team is crusing along since their very well orchestrated convention. The recent international survey findings about the US presidential race were interesting, but not surprising.