Passing Clouds

Obama does a Sarah; McCain supports Obama

2008-10-08T00:57:00.000-07:00

Moderate debate. Townhalls are supposed to be McCain's favorite hunting ground. I didn't see why. He had a couple better responses, but overall, Obama walked away with it, again. This debate will probably be remembered more for "that one" than anything else.

Couple observations:
After the VP debate, I wrote that Sarah's strategy to hijack the debate was very effective. Looks like the Obama campaign agreed. Obama annoyingly and successfully played the same trick today. On at least a couple occasions, he was answering his own questions - and to good effect. I am sure Brokaw was frustrated, as I was, but the audience graphs picked up tempo a few seconds into the response. The only difference: In Sarah's case, she didn't know the answer; In Obama's case, he believed the audience would be more interested in a different issue!

During the course of the debate, Obama also picked up an unlikely supporter - John McCain! At least twice, McCain said, when times are tough, we need a steady hand at the tiller. Finally, McCain conceded that Obama has been the cool guy thru uncertain times. McCain has now definitely put country first! So, can he ask for Obama to be nominated President by acclamation?!?!

VP Debate 2008

2008-10-03T01:44:00.001-07:00

1. Good night for Sarah - she held her own (relative to what I expected). She was a way better person than the one we saw on the Couric interview clips.

2. Biden executed his dance very delicately. Didn't come across as the "old" professor and was not condescending at all. Complete professional.

3. Sarah had some excellent coaching. Smart strategy. When she didn't know the answer, she hijacked the debate to talk about whatever she wanted to. Each time she did this, the audience graphs dipped, but a couple of lines into her talk, it picked up. So, even though there was no relevance to the original question, she managed to get some of the audience interested. She did have a Bush-doctrine moment when asked what her Achilles' heel was.

4. I am surprised not much is made of her approval of Cheney's interpretation of the Vice Presidency. Not surprising, given she doesn't think he did much wrong.

5. Both candidates performed beyond what was expected of them. Biden was very statesman-like. Sarah proved she is a better debater than an interviewee.

Overall, Biden did very well for Obama and won him a few independents. Sarah did very well for Sarah and prevented a complete write-off.

Attempting another comeback...

2008-10-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

Back again - after an even longer break. Yes, I know the iPhone has been out a while now since my last post. Already into its 2nd generation and cost me 3 times what it is priced now!

Quick thoughts on the phone: I love it. It is the best convergent device out there. But wish it had a physical keyboard. I send a lot of email from my Treo and my typing speed on iPhone's virtual keyboard comes nowhere close. Also, not to forget the restricted admin access to the phone that prevents some of the security-conscious companies from supporting it. Overall, it definitely is a killer device for consumers.

I dropped my Treo a couple weekends ago. So I am walking around with a Treo from 2004. Here is a picture! Now patiently waiting for the Blackberry Bold!

Apple iPhone has a good ring to it

2006-12-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

Back after a long blog-break! Numerous topics bookmarked away for later blogging; but it may take a while before they get out. So decided to at least make a start with a short post.

Apple! These guys understand their customers so well. Most products in the market are not truly consumer-ready. They require some form of tweaking or the other before their true potential is exposed. Not so with Apple. Its always, IMHO, a true plug n' play experience. That leads on to the topic I wanted to write about. The Apple iPhone.

When I first heard rumors about it, I decided to wait - even if it meant a year or more, before buying a new phone. Because I knew Apple would finally get the convergent device right. For years, I have looked for a good convergent device. But either they are bulky or unweildy or lack key features (good example: Treo 680 with a less than 1MP camera! What were they thinking!!). Apple's design will hopefully change all that.

I know I may be asking too much, but I hope the iPhone gives me a phone that works (like the Nokias and not the Treo - I love the Treo but the phone sucks), a good music player (like the iPod), a good email/calendar/PIM client (Good Technology rocks), a decent camera (still & video) with at least 3MP, WiFi, QWERTY keyboard and TouchScreen! And all this in a package about the size of the Nano.

I doubt if Apple will partner with Carriers or go the MVNO route. 611 calls are not what Apple would want its customer support staff to field! My guess is they will come out with a SIM-based, Carrier-independent phone that will work across networks. Option 3 on this article. Consumers gladly pay $300 and up for the 60-80GB iPod. They will have no hesitation paying that if it adds the phone feature, even if the capacity shrinks to 20-40GB.

But as they work towards the launch, Apple may have to redo some marketing material and labels!

Apple's delay has not kept its fans from guessing though. This iPhone concept blog set up by Okan Vardarova has quite a few decent designs (but none that meet my requirements yet :))

And I pray it does not look anything like the phone in this video.

Kevin Rose's spill tho appears a little staged to me. You can never tell what a few drinks can do! :)

Related Tags: Apple, iPhone, Innovation, QWERTY, WiFi, Camera, Phone, TouchScreen, MVNO, Carrier

Determination pays off - GradsWanted.com goes Live!

2006-08-23T02:38:00.000-07:00

After 4 months in hibernation, Sunder, emerged from his den today with the launch of his very cool job hosting service GradsWanted.com catering specifically to fresh graduates and interns. On his last birthday he made a promise to have something to show for the year and true to form, he now does. Sunder is determination personified. Enough said about Sunder. Lets talk about GradsWanted.com. I have been wanting to for 3 months now! :)

GradsWanted.com is a very simple Web2.0 service that does pretty much what most job hosting sites do - connect employers to prospective candidates. The difference however is in the way the employer is interfaced with the candidate. A clean clutter-free interface, intuitive design, simple easy steps and market focus are among the key differentiators. And its FREE!

The basic service is free. Students can search as much as they want to and apply to as many jobs as they would like to. Employers can post as many jobs as they would like (unlike other services that typically charge per posting), view any profile and contact any student (contact information provided by students is always available to employers). In the future, there may be a fee charged to employers when they make an offer to a candidate and for other premium services that may be introduced subsequently. The beta release carries no ads. Limited and targetted ads to students may make a in-the-distant-future release.

Most importantly, Sunder has already lined up employers such as Capital One, Georgia Dept of Transportation, RapLeaf, OPNet, EMG, Brownshoe and MulvannyG2. A few others are in the process of signing up. So when students sign in and post their details, they will already have someone eager to review their profiles and make the offer if their requirements are met.

Key Features:
Employers:

Employers can create job postings.
Employers can tag their job postings. Employers can also select the auto-tag feature to automatically generate tags.
Employers can search for candidates by University, Location, GPA, Tags, etc.
Employers can schedule events such as recruiting campaigns or career fairs.

Students:

Students can create their profiles and upload relevant documents.
Students can tag their profiles. Students can also select the auto-tag feature to automatically generate tags.
Students can search for jobs based on Location, Tags, etc.
Students can sign up for events scheduled by Employers.

Overall, GradsWanted.com is a very practical web2.0 application focussed on a niche segment. What started off as a birthday resolution has resulted in a fun service and a fun company that is bound to grow. Sign up now!

Related Links:

Link to GradsWanted
Inside GradsWanted - How it works
GradsWanted Blog
Sunder's birthday resolution
Some of his inspirations Ruby On Rails & Getting Real

Ustad Bismillah Khan - A Rare Jewel

2006-08-20T23:28:00.000-07:00

Ever since I heard Ustad Bismillah Khan was ill, I have been praying that he recover well enough to play the Shehnai on Republic Day (Jan 26th) from the India Gate as per his last wish. The news earlier today that he was recovering well and singing songs to the doctors gave me a sign of hope. But unfortunately, Ustad passed away on the wee hours of the morning today. His last wish was not to be! :(

A true patriot, when he was offered citizenship during a concert in Europe, he is supposed to have asked the sponsors - "Ganga bahti hai kya idhar? (Does the Ganga flow here?)".

Just a few hours ago, I was listening to the very patriotic song from Swades in which the Shehnai plays a haunting tune. I believe the notes for this are by Ustad Bismillah Khan. The song "Yeh jo desh hai tera, swades hai tera, tujhe hai pukara, ye woh bandhan hai jo tooth nahin sakta" rings true of one of the best musicians that ever graced the Earth!

He lives on through his music.

Links:

Some milestones
Obituary in Rediff and Hindu
When two legends came together - Ustad Bismillah Khan and Pandit Ravi Shankar
His last wish - "not any raag, but badhai"
This generation's Kabir
Music Nirvana on Ustad
Some pictures
Wikipedia on Ustad Bismillah Khan
A video documentary ($4.99)

Will Italy lose the World Cup?

2006-07-11T16:42:00.000-07:00

There has been some talk of Italy losing the World Cup if FIFA's investigation of the Zidane-Materazzi establishes that Materazzi used racial slurs. This is of course, if FIFA decides to go to the extremes to impose disciplinary action.

Here are the rules - Amendment to Article 55 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code
...Par. 1: Anyone who publicly disparages, discriminates against or denigrates someone in a defamatory manner on account of race, colour, language, religion or ethnic origin, or perpetrates any other discriminatory and/or contemptuous act, will be subject to match suspension for at least five matches at every level. Furthermore, a stadium ban and a fine of at least CHF 20,000 will be imposed on the perpetrator. If the perpetrator is an official, the fine will be at least CHF 30,000.

If any player, association or club official or spectator perpetrates any kind of discriminatory or contemptuous act as described by Par. 1 and/or 2 of this article, three points will automatically be deducted from the team concerned...

In the case of matches without points, the team concerned, if identifiable, will be disqualified...

Very unlikely that they will take the cup away. That will cause quite some outrage. But I sure hope Materazzi is fined/suspended, if found guilty.

In Zidane's defence, if someone's on the field for 90 minutes, repeatedly heckled, physically assaulted and his family's name brought to the field, it will take a lot of determination to keep from hitting back. For a player of his stature, Zidane should have known better, but I think Materazzi got less than he deserved. Zidane should have let his clenched fist do some talking too.

Speculation on what Materazzi told Zidane:
1. BBC - "I wish an ugly death to you and all your family, go **** yourself. A high ball is "not for feccia like you". ('Feccia' is an Italian insult meaning scum or shit.)
2. Sun - "son of a terrorist whore". (Zidane's mom, Malika, had been unwell for a few days.)
3. Some others say he called Zidane's sister a prostitute.

Of course pyschologists must have their say too:
Panelist Gerard Ernault, editor of France Football magazine, suggested Zidane may have acted unconsciously as a reaction to his impending retirement. "We could ask ourselves if he refused this consecration, this crown atop his head, by making suicidal gestures as a way also to reject his exit, his retirement".

Related Tags: Soccer, Game, Sports, Italy, Portugal, Germany, France, World Cup 2006, Fake, Footwork, Foul, Red Card, Zidane, Materazzi, BBC, Sun, FIFA, Suspension, Fine, FIFA Disciplinary Code, Article 55

Anger Management or Better Sportsmanship?

2006-07-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

In continuation of the excellence exhibited in the Germany-Portugal clash yesterday, the World Cup Soccer Finals played out very well today. Unfortunately, the final verdict had to be deferred to a penalty kick-out. But more than Italy's 5-3 victory over France, more has been said of the Zidane-Materazzi incident. From the video, it appears like Materazzi got what he deserved. I would have liked Zidane to have been spared the misery of sitting out the last few minutes of what is probably his last game. But at this level, and with his experience, Zidane should have known better.

Zidane's initial response to Materazzi was subdued; but Materazzi's continued tauts irked Zidane enough to momentarily lose his cool. Even as he struck Materazzi, the look on Zidane's face and his body language exhibited the regret; but it was too late and his illustrious career had to end with a red card.

So, would anger management classes have made a difference for Zidane? I don't believe any degree of anger management is going to take out all of our anger, unless of course you are on the path to becoming a monk - a very good one at that. What could have definitely helped is if Materazzi had exhibited better sportsmanship and played the game fair instead of resorting to extreme mind-games as a few teams repeatedly do in Cricket.

I hope the next World Cup is played with more fairness, less fakes, better sportsmanship and more spectacular footwork and strategies.

Zidane-Materazzi Video:

Update (Jul 10)
Materazzi's skills: (via digg - there is no escaping the past)

Related Tags: Soccer, Game, Sports, Italy, Portugal, Germany, France, World Cup 2006, Fake, Footwork, Foul, Red Card, Zidane, Materazzi

Finally, some good soccer!

2006-07-08T12:15:00.000-07:00

After a disappointing semi-finals where Italy and Portugal players competed for best fakes, we are finally getting to see some really good moves on the field. Germany and Portugal are going all out in the fight for the third place. In 20 minutes there have been at least 10 attacking shots at the goal; 2/3rd by Germany. So far, Germany has displayed superior technique and some excellent footwork. And also fouled the most. The refrees though, are being a lot more lenient in this game.

Back to the semis - Italy's practice sessions sure came in handy for their game vs Germany. But Portugal went one up in their game with France. If it took the slightest contact for Italian players to hit the dirt; the Portuguese went down if they were within 6 inches from an opponent. In one instance, 2 players went down when the ball passed between them. The funny thing was neither of them came in contact with an opponent player or the ball. Nonetheless, both appealed! :)

Italy's Practice Sessions:

Update:
Germany scored a well-deserved win (3-1). They played the game aggressively from the beginning and kept the pressure on Portugal through the game. 3 of the 4 goals scored in the game were awesome; the exception being the self-goal by Portugal. If only Germany had played with this spirit in their semi-finals game with Italy, they well could have been facing France tomorrow! Lets hope the game tomorrow is just as exciting as this one.

Related Tags: Soccer, Game, Sports, Italy, Portugal, Germany, France, World Cup 2006, Fake, Footwork

Google Video offers free videos

2006-06-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

I chanced upon Google Video's new "Free Today" feature. Videos that typically cost $0.99 to $14.99 are offered for free. These are sponsored by advertisers such as Netflix, HP, Burger King, etc. I came across some real good stuff including this 1915 Charlie Chaplin video. Only wish they offered these as downloads as well! :)

Related Links:

More Charlie Chaplin. Some more Charlie Chaplin.
A touching oscar-winning documentary on 9-year old Nadia who is afflicted with Spinal bifida.
A video on Alaska.
Underwater Movie on Sharks.
Technorati Tags: Alaska, Charlie Chaplin, Documentary, Experimental, Google, Google Video, Shark, Spinal bifida, Video

Trying hard to please...

2006-06-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

Catering to each individual
A couple months ago I was at P.F.Chang's for lunch with 6 of my colleagues. Lunch done, we were served the check. We paid for it with 7 cards! Our very attentive and witty server left the table with "I will be back in an hour". :-) He was back in 5 minutes. He called out each of our names without once looking at the cards - even my very "Indian" name. He also knew where each individual was seated! Amazing memory. But more importantly, he lent it a very personal touch. Needless to say, he got a hefty tip from us. Personalized Customer Service at its best!

"We try harder" or should it be "We hardly try"?
Yesterday, I tried to reserve a van for our trip to Crater Lake this long weekend. I found a deal on Avis.com and booked it. But then realized they had limited miles (200 a day). So I looked up Orbitz and sure enough, found the exact same Avis offer on Orbitz, but with unlimited miles. So I called Avis and asked them to match the Orbitz offer. But they refused. So I asked them to cancel the reservation and they did without blinking an eye!

The Avis Offer Screenshot:

The Orbitz Offer Screenshot:

It is very unlikely that I will go over the 800 miles they had on offer. They could have matched the deal and retained a satisfied customer. But instead, they preferred to lose the business to a competitor, created some negative "word of mouth" for themselves and lost a customer. So much for "trying hard"!

"Please hold. Your business is important to us." - Is it? Really?
This one takes the cake. A Comcast technician, put on hold for an hour by Comcast Technical Support, dozed off at a customer's home. The customer, Brian Finkelstein posted a clip of the dozing technician on his blog and word soon reached the upper echelons at Comcast. The technician was fired and Brian had a few guests from Comcast who worked thru midnight to fix the problem. Why does it have to take so much effort to get companies to provide basic support?

Customer Rules! And can be easily pleased!! Just ask the server at P.F.Chang's.

Technorati Tags: Avis, Business, Customer, Customer-Service, Marketing, Service

Riya 2.0: Rapid Improvements or More Spin?

2006-06-21T03:04:00.000-07:00

When I first reviewed Riya a few months ago, it fell way short of what was advertised then. Riya's CEO Munjal Shah pointed out that my test failed because I was using low-resolution images from the web and that Riya works only with resolutions of 2MP or higher. But a recent post on Munjal's blog and TechCrunch indicates that Riya may have now made that quantum leap to finding any image on the web.

Quote from TechCrunch:
"...When it’s ready, users will be able to search on an image (the easiest way will be via a browser plugin to search right from the page containing the images). See a rug on ebay that has a pattern you like? See other rugs from across the web containing similar patterns...See someone’s picture on MySpace that you like? Search on their photo to find single people who look similar and who have profiles up on match.com or other dating sites...".

If this is true, then a business model is finally emerging from Riya. The question is if this is a viable business model.

So, will it work?
The shift in strategy does indicate that Riya is under pressure from VCs to deliver a working product with a revenue stream.

The costs of indexing billions of images from across the web are pretty high. And then there is the issue of real-time responses to end users. Google's text-based searches have acceptable response times. When we change the input from text to images, we have to multiply that response time a few times. That will clearly put it beyond acceptable, unless Riya has some ground-shaking magic sauce.

Riya has also lost some time to a few possible competitors in this space. The recent departure of their marketing force, Tara Hunt, only add to its woes.

In summary, the costs associated with this shift are too high in comparison to the actual revenue which will likely be referral fees. Riya may have to go back to its drawing board very soon.

Related Links:

My test of the alpha release; Munjal's response; Tara's response
Riya 2.0 Announcement on Munjal's blog and TechCrunch
Technorati Tags: riya, photosearch, soalphaithurts

Dr.Rajkumar - An incredible entertainer

2006-04-16T21:58:00.000-07:00

Dr.Rajkumar, the leading thespian of yesteryears, passed away last week. Through his life, he played a very significant role in promoting Kannada and its rich culture and lived true to one of his popular songs "Naaniruvudhe Nimagaagi". In fact, Kannada and Dr.Raj had become synonymous in the current era. His passing has created a huge void.

Dr.Raj, popularly known as "Annavaru", acted in about 205 films in a career that spanned 45 years. Not only was he a versatile actor, but also a good singer. Just a couple months ago, I saw one of his best movies (again) "Babhruvahana" and it brought back memories from my childhood. I remember being grounded for watching the movie instead of studying for my exams; but then I cannot resist mythological and historical movies! IMHO, few actors can carry off those roles as well as Shivaji Ganesan, Dr.Raj, NTR and Mukesh Khanna. On my last trip home, I bought 2 of Dr.Raj's movies - "Bedara Kannappa" and "Satya Harishchandra" and almost the entire collection of his songs.

Annavaru was a pure gem in India's crown. A simple man to the end. His legacy will live on.

Related Links:

Dr.Raj's eyes donated.

A brief introduction to Annavaru.

The man who changed Kannada Cinema.

His journey through time.

More on the legend.

His best movies and songs.

Technorati Tags: Dr.Raj, Annavaru, Rajkumar, Movie, Kannada, Entertainment, Karnataka

Riya - Alpha Release: So alpha it hurts!

2005-12-19T10:30:00.000-08:00

After 3 weeks in my draft folder, I finally got around to this today. I was one of the lucky 1000 selected to try the alpha release of Riya. There had been so much buzz about this on Slashdot, Digg and TechCrunch, that I was talking about this application's capabilities to friends and colleagues long before I got to see the application. And I learnt a big lesson. No matter what the experts say, hold off talking about an app, till you have actually test-driven it.

My experience with Riya's alpha release has been very disappointing. Well, to start with, it is probably my fault because I had high expectations, especially after I read this on Wired "Currently in alpha testing, the software has proven sensitive enough to tell the difference between twins and recognize members of the same family.". Forget twins, Riya failed to recognize the exact same snap of the same person. In my testing, Riya failed at some very basic image recognition test cases.

Test approach:
I did not want to upload any of my personal pictures. So I chose to use pictures that are already widely available on the web - celebrities, Bollywood celebrities to be precise! The folks at coolbuddy were kind enough to give me permission to use pictures from their website. 569 photos of Aishwarya Rai, Amisha Patel, Bipasha Basu, Preity Zinta, Sonali Bendre, Tabu, Urmila, etc made their way to my Riya account. And I got started.

Identification:
Riya automatically recognizes areas of the photograph that appear like a face and marks it for identification. This is however not consistent and many faces were not auto-marked. I had over 50 Aishwarya's pictures and so went about identifying her snaps. The more snaps recognized by the user, the better Riya is trained to recognize the rest of the snaps. I started with recognizing 10 of Ash's snaps and some of Amisha, Amrita, Bipasha and Preity. I then let Riya recognize the rest. The results were rather poor with some of Aishwarya's snaps being recognized as Amrita and Bipasha. So I went through another round of recognizing some more Aishwarya's snaps to better train Riya; but there was little improvement in the auto-identification by Riya. Next, I recognized 31 of Ash's snaps (one more than what Riya considers great for auto-recognition), but this did not change the end results.

Test Case Summary for identification:
1. Identify some images and then let Riya do its magic. Test Result: Poor
2. Use mirror images of the same person. Test Result: Failed
3. Tiled images of the same person. Test Result: Failed
4. Use different size images of the the same photograph. Test Result: Failed
5. Use the same photographs, but with different sharpness. Test Result: Failed

I expect an image recognition application to positively identify the same people with different expressions and also at different ages. But Riya fails at this. In fact, a scaled down version of the exact same snap of Aishwarya was not recognized by Riya even though I identified Aishwarya in the bigger image. Even text recognition works only when the text is crisp and normal.

So IMHO, this alpha release of Riya is ways away from where the Riya team would like it to be.

Here are some actual examples where Riya failed:

In this picture, Amisha Patel's picture is tiled multiple times. (i) Riya wrongly identified Amisha as Esha Doel. To be fair, I trained Riya with only 8 Amisha snaps. (ii) Even if this was correct, it should have identified all instances in the image as Esha, but it did not.

In this picture, we have mirror images of Twinkle Khanna. Riya identified one of the images as Preity Zinta and the other as Amrita Arora.

Same images of Aishwarya - one is a mirror image and the other is brighter. I trained Riya with these 2. But it wrongly identified Asihwarya in this picture as Amrita.

Mirror images of Sonali Bendre. I trained Riya by recognizing one and expected Riya to identify the other. But it didn't.

Faces are not always recognized. Here are some examples (1 2 3 4). Riya did not think any of these were faces!

Market Perception:
A lot of hype has been generated around Riya by veterans such as Michael Arrington at Tech Crunch and Robert Scoble at Scobleizer. It would be interesting to see some of their test images that went through Riya. In the current form, the only gain for anyone acquiring Riya is getting them for a lot less than when the application actually works! It appears like Google is not interested for now.

The business case for Riya is very strong. There are a lot of uses for a technology such as Riya's - when it works. Here is hoping the next release does better.

Related links:

More test photos on flickr

Technorati Tags: riya, photosearch, soalphaithurts

Syriana - A movie that could have been. (3/5)

2005-12-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

Movie Review - Syriana. My Rating 3/5. Worth a watch, only because it exposes the deep nexus between American businesses and the Government and how political agendas are set based on business interests.

Two powerful scenes that sum up the movie:
On being charged with corruption, a protagonist explodes:
"Corruption charges...Corruption? Corruption is Government intrusion into market efficiencies in the form of regulation. That's Milton Friedman. And he got a goddamn Nobel Prize. We have laws against it precisely so we can get away with it. Corruption is our protection. Corruption keeps us safe and warm. Corruption is why you and I are prancing out here instead of fighting for scraps of meat out on the street. Corruption... is why we win."

Prince Nazir in a frustrated moment on being pushed to a corner by the US for accepting the higher Chinese bid for his nation's oil tells Matt Damon:
I want to rebuild my nation, set up an independent judiciary, a parliament, reforms for women. I want to do whatever possible to introduce efficiencies to maximize profitability; profits that would then be used to rebuild my nation. Except your President rings my father and says I have unemployment in Texas, Kansas and Washington state. One phone call later we are stealing out of our social programs to buy overpriced planes. We owed the Americans, but we have overpaid our debts. I accepted the Chinese bid, the highest bid. And suddenly I am a terrorist, a communist.

Here is a movie that could have easily made it to the top; but falls short because of mediocre direction, poor editing and poor screenplay. The movie has been unnecessarily stretched and as a result dilutes a powerful story.

Syriana is about how the West is going all out to exert its influence over the Middle East to ensure the Western oil pipelines never run dry. If it takes assassinations, regime changes to replace moderate elements with corrupt ones that favor the West, payoffs, so be it! The end objective is for the West to have the oil.

But the director loses his bearing with the narration swinging between gripping scenes and meaningless charades. In the end, a good story is floundered and the audience is left with a very watered-down message.

The scenes with the Mid-East workers on the oil rigs is by far the worst. It is almost like these scenes were force-fit into the movie to show both sides of the story. This is followed closely by the CIA agent's (George Clooney) interactions with spooks and terrorists. Very amateurish handling. If this is how spooks work, then the terrorists have nothing to fear! If not for George's acting, this would have taken first spot on worst scenes. Also, for some strange reason, the director has some of the oil-rig workers speaking in Hindi. Hindi in that region?!?!? BTW, I always thought my Hindi sounded real poor because of my South Indian accent, but after hearing these guys speak Hindi, I feel so much better.

All criticisms aside, go watch it to see how the US Government manipulates its people and the rest of the world! If you are only looking for a good "spook" movie, then Spy Game is the one to watch.

Related links:

A few key scenes (video).

Syriana's website.

The movie is loosely based on this book - See No Evil, by former CIA agent Robert Baer.

Yahoooo! Delicious!!!

2005-12-09T14:47:00.000-08:00

Tagging is the cool phrase VCs love to hear these days! Close on the heels of CNET acquiring Consumating (!!!), del.icio.us announced that it is now part of the Yahoo family.

Yahoo has had a very aggressive last 2 quarters this year, taking the fight into the Google camp. They have upgraded most of their key services and added new ones to meet Google's challenge - Yahoo Mail, Flickr, Yahoo Maps, RSS feeds from any source to any device, going after Skype and now del.icio.us! Good comeback Yahoo!!! Microsoft is running a distant third in this space, but more the big players, the merrier for us end consumers!

There is some chatter on the web on whether this union is good for users. IMHO, what end-users need is a one-stop shop or a few-stop shops to meet their daily needs. If I can get most of it at either Google or Yahoo, awesome! Consolidation benefits the end-users as much as the companies coming together. Also, both G and Y! are fiercely competing to deliver better services, and both understand the importance of social networking. So, this acquisition can only be good for the end-users.

Here is a good interview on why del.icio.us is useful. Stuart's response to the first question sums it up. And here are some useful tools that extend del.icio.us

Finally, a useful wiki for travellers

2005-12-08T22:09:00.000-08:00

Very detailed wiki for travellers covering most every country on the globe.

Main wiki here. My home town in India - Bangalore. And my home for now - Portland.

One stop shop for Public Transport maps/schedule

2005-12-08T12:10:00.000-08:00

Yet another new "beta" service from Google. Provide a start and end address and a time and it will show you the best public transportation combination to get there, ETA and costs. This release only covers the Portland Metro area (OR).

Example: If you have to get from NW 13th Ave to the Airport at 7PM, look up directions using this text: 800 NW 13th ave, Portland, OR 97209 to pdx at 7PM to get these directions. It even shows what the public transport would cost vs driving!

Here is a snippet from the GBlog:
With it, commuters will be able to easily access public transit schedules, routes, and plan trips using their local public transportation options. This first release covers only the Portland, Oregon metro area, but we are working to expand our coverage very soon.

They seem to do better with the 20% projects than their regular day jobs! :)

The magical tapestry they wove!

2005-12-07T23:48:00.000-08:00

Watched Dev Anand's CID (again) and the special features section had a documentary on Guru Dutt! Took me thru his movies I have enjoyed over the years, almost every one of them, more than once. Pyaasa, Aar Par, Mr.&Mrs.55, Kaagaz Ke Phool...

When I think of the best Bollywood artistes from that era, quite a few names come to mind, but Guru Dutt and Madhubala remain my all-time favorites! Maybe someday I will write more about them, and also Dev Anand, Waheeda Rehman, Utpal Dutt, Vyjayanthimala... The ladies sparkled with their eyes and beauty, while Guru Dutt captured the emotions splendidly on celluloid! The song picturizations are mind-boggling! True entertainers!!

And now they "discover" the lies!

2005-12-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

Just before the war started, I wrote this post on how the American Government was embracing the principles of Goebbels. And now they talk about investigating the recent allegations of the Pentagon planting stories in the Iraqi media. Who will investigate the lies in the American media?

Related links: BBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, Guardian, Christian Science Monitor.

Mr. Sunder Iyer graces blogosphere

2005-11-30T12:33:00.000-08:00

Another post thats taken its time - but this time under 2 months! :) Sunder hit the blogosphere, finally, last month. He is one of those very few determined go-getters I have come across, extremely creative and a born entrepreneur. We met during our BSc days at MES, Bangalore and since then it has been one fun ride after another. We spent more time loitering in IISc than we did in college, had similar attendance records, got caught bunking classes... the list goes on. His enthusiasm and creativity easily rubs off on everyone interacting with him. For long, he steered clear of blogosphere, but since he got in, its been one awesome post after another.

Here is what he says about himself, his first post on a person we spent hours talking about over the years and the main page of the blog itself. And here are some pictures of us from 4 Thanks-Givings ago.

Welcome to the blogosphere buddy! Keep the posts coming!

The Google clout

2005-11-30T12:15:00.000-08:00

A good consolidation of Google's wares has been posted on Wired.

Also here is an excellent video of where the world will be in 2014... I have been meaning to blog this for almost a year now... I guess I will just dump all those "waiting to be blogged" links in one big post. Bala is procrastination's middle name! :)

Am alpha-testing Riya. My first impression - they have lots to do before it hits prime time. More on that in a subsequent post.

Get the stars to sing your song!

2005-11-23T22:35:00.000-08:00

And here is an interesting site that will have the stars singing your songs! This service finds existing songs that use the words in the lyrics you write and then concatanates them together to create a new song, a bit off-tune mostly, but, hey, you have the stars crooning your lyrics! :)

WOW! Genius!!!

2005-11-23T22:28:00.000-08:00

This service from Google is incredible! Great thinking!!!

The Volcker Report - Guilty or Not?

2005-11-07T12:57:00.000-08:00

The Volcker Report - Guilty or Not?

Two of my favorite commentators have slightly different reads of the controversy generated by the Volcker Report - B.Raman (former RAW additional secretary) says the US does not like Natwar Singh and T.V.R.Shenoy (Journalist - remember the insightful last page in The Week) talks about the Congress' idiotic threat to the UN.

Yahoo Maps 2.0 (Beta) - First Impressions!

2005-11-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

Yahoo Maps 2.0 (Beta) - First Impressions!

When Y! Maps was launched a few years ago, I was very fascinated with the detailed turn-by-turn information that it dished out, esp since I am extremely spatially challenged and can get lost driving home from work (I blame it on deep thoughts bouncing in my head, but...)! MapQuest didn't do much for me. And then along came Google, brushing aside all the competition with its AJAX-powered, simple, intuitive rendition of global maps! Since that day, I have not been on Yahoo maps again, until today.

With this new release, Y! has shaken up its maps application and enriched it with numerous new and useful features. Here is my first impression of Yahoo Maps 2.0 Beta.

The Good:

Page refreshes for every single action has traditionally frustrated users on Y!. GMaps showed why non-intrusion is key for a mapping application, esp when the user wants to move around, zoom-in and zoom-out. Y! has achieved this using Flash resulting in a much better user experience.

The most useful feature I liked was the ability to get directions to multiple locations on the same map. All these years, its been maps from Point A to B and back if necessary. I usually have more than one place to go, and would have to look them all up separately. Y! maps does a one-up on Google by throwing in this capability. Not only can I look up directions to n number of locations, but can also move the order of the locations around. Example: Assume I get directions from "Home" to "Best Buy" to "The Mac Store" to "Macy's" To "Groceries" and back to "Home" and my wife comes along to see the itinerary. Doubtless, I will have to move locations around (after a quick well-anticipated stare from her) so we get to Macy's and groceries before we venture anywhere else (if at all). With Y!Maps, I can just drag the locations around and the maps engine reworks the directions for me in no time. WOW!

It highlights sections of the path when the user mouses-over the directions. Some good thinking there for poor lost souls like me!

Category-based search has a good coverage and allows easy refinement of criteria.

Another big plus is the numerous APIs exposed. Provides developers multiple options to integrate mapping into their applications. It imposes similar terms (restrictions) as Google on developers.

The Bad:

Category search could have been simpler. Too many categories have been buried on a small panel on the left. Usability suffers as a result. Google does better on this front.

Ability to move locations around on the description/directions panel is real nice. It would have been better if it allowed the user to drag the whole text box around instead of just the "balloon".

The translucent bird's eye map with the zoom control should have been minimized by default so it didn't overlay on the main map.

It would have been good if the addresses collapsed when locations are moved around. Else it tends to fill up the directions panel pretty fast.

I am not sure what the "Live Traffic" option is for. It does nothing to the map. I must be missing something. Anyone know what it does?

The Ugly:

"Send to phone" only sends a link to the map. I would have liked to see step-by-step driving instructions in the message. Often times I call friends for directions. It would be so much simpler, if they could look up directions and text them to me via the "Send to phone" option.

I tried to add a smart keyword for Yahoo maps in Firefox, but was not able to. One, the URL doesn't show the parameters and so I can't use %s to set the keyword. Two, right-clicking in the directions field doesn't give me the "Add smart keyword" option. This is a big negative. I have "map" set up as my keyword for GMaps and can get to any place in an instant on GMaps (example: map 97209 or map pdx). Without smart keywords for Y!Maps, I will turn to it only if GMaps cannot get me to someplace (not happened in all the time I have used it) or if I am looking for directions to multiple locations.

Zooming could have been a lot better. It is jarring when it first zooms deep in a little more than required and then steps back a bit to settle at the required zoom level.

The tool-tips are redundant.

I know this is a beta, but they could have done better QA with it. I ran into some basic bugs in the locations panel with locations being duplicated, lost, etc.

A missing feature (I think) is the ability to look up directions to multiple locations from one central point, ie, A to B; A to C; A to D; A to E... Lets say I am planning a trip to the coast and I have 3-4 beaches to choose from. I would like to see, on one map, the paths to each of the end points so I can make an "intelligent" decision. Assuming, "Live Traffic" does what it is supposed to do, it would enhance my decisioning process! :)

I may have more bullets under Bad and Ugly, but some of these can be easily overcome or addressed thru minor fixes. Also, remember, this is a beta. Overall, IMHO, this is a real good response to GMaps and sets the tone for improvisations by the other players. Very good job Y!

For the geeks!

2005-11-04T10:39:00.000-08:00

For the geeks!

Here are some utilities that I find very useful:

mp3tag: I have been using this for more than a year now and this is, by far, one of the best mp3 tagging utilities I have come across. It allows a very intuitive and easy editing of ID3 tags for audio files and supports more than just mp3s. Not only does it allow you to derive ID3 from the file name, but once you have the ID3s refined, you can derive the file names using the ID3. Must try utility! Thanks to mp3tag, my audio library is as good as it can get. Link to the website.

MKS Toolkit: UNIX on Windows! Guess that says it all. grep and make to your heart's content! Link to the website.

cURL, WGET: Ever wanted to save multiple images or songs or other files from one website. cURL or WGET is the tool you want. These are command line utilities that spider out into the web to retrieve files/web pages for specified URLs. You can decide how deep you want to go into a site. It can stop at the first level or follow links from the first level to the next one and so on.

Here is an usage example. Lets say you are an Aishwarya Rai fan and you come across a site such as this one. Instead of right clicking on each one to do a "Save As...", use cURL or WGET to recursively run through the site to retrieve the files.

The command to accomplish this is a single line:
cURL http://www.bollywoodscreensavers.com/wallpapers/indceleb/imgs/Aishwarya[01-10].jpg -o "Ash#1.jpg".

This will recursively pull the files Aishwarya01.jpg, Aishwarya02.jpg... and save them in the local machine as Ash01.jpg, Ash02.jpg...

For the Ash fan, my example pulls only 10 images, but the site has over 60 Aishwarya images! For the music fan, if you come across a site with plenty of mp3s (non-copyrighted), here is how you can easily get them. ;)

Link to the websites: cURL, WGET and WGET for Windows.

Plenty more such as Slickrun, but I will leave that for another day!

Stable but volatile?

2005-10-19T12:47:00.001-07:00

Stable but volatile?

Is it just me or is this headline on CNN today self-contradictory?
Weakened dam stable but 'extremely volatile' :)

The source.

Hilarious clip on troop training!

2005-10-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Hilarious clip on troop training!

Been gone for a long time - busy at work, a short 3-week vacation in India and then busy again... But plenty to talk about. Will get to it soon. This one, however, couldn't wait. A must watch clip folks - one of Jon Stewart's best.

Vande Mataram!

2005-08-14T22:53:00.000-07:00

Vande Mataram!

A Very Happy Independence Day!

And on the occassion, here is an inspiring endeavour from the recent past. It is also good to see creative ventures such as eChoupal effectively take IT to benefit the common man! More about eChoupal on a subsequent post. For now, some details here.

Vande Mataram!

A Befitting Obituary

2005-07-21T22:11:00.000-07:00

A Befitting Obituary

This is the first time I am hearing Ane-Karine's name, but here is a person I would loved to meet and know. A very befitting obituary by Robert Fisk.

Our shameless hypocrisy

2005-07-11T17:07:00.000-07:00

Our shameless hypocrisy

So much has been said and done in the last few days in the aftermath of the grim tragedy in London that snuffed 50+ innocent lives. There has been an outpouring of sorrow from across the globe. World leaders have mourned, citizens from across nations have shed tears, flowers decked sidewalks, posters expressed grief and solidarity, sportsmen paid their silent respects before games, even a dedicated web-site shows London is not afraid. And that solidarity sure lends a strong shoulder to our grieving friends in London.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the average civilian death toll continues to hover around 80 per week. 80 civilians per week killed by insurgents and coalition forces! Entire villages and cities have been wiped out by the coalition forces. Women, children and the aged brutally cut down by the savagery of the coalition and the insurgents.

But yet, there are no sidewalks lined with flowers. There are no moments of silence on sports-fields. There are no expressions of anguish or cries to bring the perpetrators to justice. There are no blogs that go silent for a day to express their grief for the Iraqi suffering. There is not even an official count of the dead. The Iraqi misery continues unabated!

Such is the hypocritical world we live in. Heres hoping peace to the innocent victims and their families across the world.

When fiction comes to life - The story of Ramon Mercader

2005-07-11T16:12:00.000-07:00

When fiction comes to life - The story of Ramon Mercader

According to a news report today, the ice pick used to murder Leon Trotsky (founder of the Red Army and founding member of the Politburo) has been found. Some googling led me to a site that provided a detailed account of the assassination. Ramon Mercader's plot reads like a Ludlum book!

Related links:

The news report on the ice pick

About Leon Trotsky

When do we demand an apology?

2005-06-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

When do we demand an apology?

Here are a couple Nixon-Kissinger exchanges on November 5, 1971 after their meeting with Indira Gandhi in New York barely a month before India invaded East Pakistan and helped create Bangladesh:

Nixon to Kissinger: "We really slobbered over the old witch."

Kissinger to Nixon: "The Indians are bastards anyway, they are starting a war there."

Kissinger to Nixon: "While she was a bitch, we got what we wanted too. She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war."

The US even encouraged China to "engage" India during the tensions between India and East Pakistan.

More here and here.

Update: Some stinging documents here that show US's support for the Pakistani genocide in Bangladesh. (Thanks Manish). Source documents here.

America's Duplicity - This time, target Iran

2005-06-30T17:57:00.000-07:00

America's Duplicity - This time, target Iran

As much as I desist from writing about the war, the policies and adventures, rather mis-adventures, of the American administration keep upping the ante and it becomes impossible for me to resist venting my frustration - yet again.

Barely a few days after the former mayor of Teheran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected President of Iran, the Americans are working their propoganda machinery, a la, Goebbels, to paint a horrible picture of him in particular and Iran in general.

First, Rummy, Cheney and Bush called the Iranian elections unfair. The Americans have just gone through 2 questionable elections and yet they think they (and UK) have the moral right to call the elections in Iran unfair. Of course, the elections in Iraq held under the American guns went as well as any election ever could!

Then, a few of the hostages "recognized" Ahmadinejad as one of the student leaders who held 52 Americans captive for 444 days during the revolution of 1979 that put Ayotallah Khomeini to power.

What is not much highlighted are these facts:

The US and UK intelligence forces were responsible for toppling Dr.Mohammed Mossadegh's popular elected Government in Iran and replacing him with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (Shah of Iran). They toppled him because he sought to nationalize the Iranian oil reserves.

The Shah led a ruthless persecution of his people through tortures and assasinations, all through supported by both US and UK.
The 1979 workers revolution resulted in the Shah fleeing to the US where the mass murderer and torturer was given sanctuary.
The Iranians then led protests, mostly outside the American embassy, demanding the Americans to deport the Shah back to Iran to face trials for his war crimes. Of course, the US refused.

The frustrated Iranians then planned and successfully took over the American embassy and held about 55 Americans captive for 444 days.

But none of those anti-democratic acts of the Americans ever come under a microscope. The only point thats highlighted in the media is that Ahmadinejad was a possible captor.

Even if he was, I don't see what the big deal is. Do they want him to stand trial? Or are they looking for an excuse to take out Iran as they did Iraq?

The Americans have invaded a nation violating all international laws. They have committed a terrorist act. And they are holding the elected President of a nation captive and thousands of civilians in prisons where they are subjected to rape and torture. That in a nutshell the enormity of American warcrimes, without even going into the thousands of innocent civilians killed so far and the hundreds more dying on a daily basis because of them.

And instead of addressing their war crimes, they are going back 25+ years to try and figure out if Ahmadinejad was a captor!

There is a clear emerging pattern here. First they paint a country as undemocratic. Once that message sinks in, they paint the leaders of the nation as not only anti-American but as people who have been at "war" with the US. That is usually sufficient to sucker the majority of the Americans into believing that the said country is uncivilized, backward, oppressive and brimming with terrorists. The next step would be to play the "nuclear weapons" card. And finally, the "serious national security" ace. Thats about all it takes to rally most of the Americans to feel "patriotic" and want to go in and take out the tyrannical government in a far-off land. Nobody even talks about the collateral damage and the so-called coalition's depleted uranium shells scattered across the Middle East countryside.

I hope America's duplicity comes under the spotlight soon enough and the rest of the world stands up at least this time against the Western war criminals.

Meanwhile, I may have to prepare for an orange suit for writing this piece!

The real cowards - Western media

2005-06-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

The real cowards - Western media

Another of Robert Fisk's frustrating notes. Only yesterday I was talking to a friend of the Western media's cowardice to report as they must of the truth. But to them the runaway brides are bigger issues than innocent folks dying everyday in a far off land where democracy was finally unleashed by the righteous Westerners. Here is Fisk's article.

A blog & writer of note: Ammani

2005-06-12T20:46:00.000-07:00

A blog & writer of note: Ammani

Very few people have the ability to capture profound emotions and thoughts in the simplest of words. One such writer is UK-based Ammani. On her now very popular blog, she posts short stories (that she calls Quick Tales) - each no more than a few lines that reach deep into the reader and finds a pulse that resonates in harmony. The elegance and simplicity is mind-blowing. On the personal blogs I frequent, few have made as much impacts as River or Ammani. Here are some of my favorites from Ammani's blog: Irony, Namesake, Photo, Bio-Data, An Expense, Bargain and Secret.

One of her Quick Tales (QT 16 - Secret) was translated to Tamil by the famous writer Sujatha (dialogue-writer for most of Mani Ratnam's movies including Roja, Kannathil Mutham Ittal and Ayutha Ezhuthu) in his regular column in Anantha Vikatan. That in itself, speaks volumes about her writing prowess.

Blog on Ammani! Not long before a publisher picks these up for a compilation.

Big Bully!

2005-06-06T22:47:00.000-07:00

Big Bully!

Bolton, one of the scoundrels working behind the scenes implementing and promoting Bush's illegal wars, has been in the spotlight recently as he awaits the US Senate vote that could send him as USA's Ambassador to the UN. This man once said "If the UN Secretariat building lost 10 stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference." And ironically, he is USA's choice to the UN! Well, all that is old news. He has always been infamous for being a bully. But today I came across this news article in the Guardian that takes him to a higher level. He was known to be a bully with co-workers and folks he interacted with in other departments. But according to this article, Bolton was instrumental in getting the head of Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) fired. This article also shows how the US unfairly flexes its muscles in international politics.

Related links:

An effort to stop Bolton from getting to the UN

A good biography - not one Bolton would want to read.

One more biography.

Best Indian Films of all time

2005-06-02T07:15:00.000-07:00

Best Indian Films of all time

Time recently published its list of 100 best films ever and 5 Indian movies made the grade - Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, Guru Dutt's Pyaasa and Mani Ratnam's Nayakan.

Rediff has now started a month-long series of top 10 Indian movies from the perspective of Indian film-makers and critics. And they started with Subhash Ghai. My first reaction to Mr.Ghai's list was that of frustration.

I thought this was a list of India's best films. But all I see on his list are Hindi movies. Is Mr. Ghai just ignorant of movies in other languages or does he hate to give credit where it is due?

It is a real shame that one of India's leading film-makers didn't think it worthy to mention even a single South Indian movie. Hum Apke Hai Kaun makes the list but not Roja or Bombay or Nayakan or Beladingala Baalae or Shankarabaranam or Kshana Kshanam or Pushpakavimanam or Kaazhcha (the list goes on)... I agree it is about individual tastes and perspectives - but on this one, I think it is more than just that!

Open your mind to good cinema from other regions too Mr.Ghai.

Unrelated link: Rahman's composition for Roja made it to the top 10 best soundtracks ever. Here is a nice write-up on him.

Mr. Bush, you just don't get it!

2005-05-20T16:13:00.000-07:00

Mr. Bush, you just don't get it!

Mr. President,

For the last 5 months I have refrained from writing about the illegal war waged by you in Iraq in the name of democracy. And in this period alone hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed, a "Government" has been appointed, some of the war criminals easily let off... the sad list goes on. Each and every one of your steps in a way adds to the list of war crimes committed by the coalition and their violations of the Geneva conventions. Yesterday's *release* of a photo of Saddam in his underwear was no different.

Your military released these pictures assuming that it would break the back of the Iraqi Resistance when they see "their" leader in his underwear. Now that confounds me. The USA is considered to have a smart, efficient and effective military; but it doesn't even understand what drives the people they are trying so hard to subjugate. A photo such as this does not break spirits, it only forges them. Here is what you had to say to the media about the photo:
""I don't think a photo inspires murderers. I think they're inspired by an ideology that's so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend how they think."

Mr. Bush, it is because of this inability of yours to respect other nations that the US is hated as much as it is. It is this attitude of considering everyone else who is not towing the line of the US as backward and sometimes barbaric that is causing you so much grief. Different regions and different cultures have a different perspective of life and their behavior is directed by their beliefs. Saddam may be a villain to you (though the USA had no inhibitions in providing him with tons of weaponry and money in the past), but to the Iraqis and people in the region he is still a leader - a bad one may be, but still a leader. They may hate him, but they will not tolerate an outsider insulting him. An insult to one of their own is considered an insult against them. And the people in that region (as everywhere else) do not take insults lightly. And should they be insulted, they will lash back even if it is at the cost of their lives.

Don't forget that when US mercenaries were brutally killed in Fallujah, American public outcry increased only when they saw the photographs of the burning bodies and body parts of the US mercenaries hanging from bridges. Those photographs sealed the fate of Fallujah and its citizens who were mercilessly massacred. It was those photos, I must say to your credit, effectively used by your Administration, that “justified” the havoc your military unleashed in Fallujah. To a lot of people, the American response was considered barbaric because it targeted innocent civilians for the acts of the Resistance.

So now what in your infinite wisdom gives you the confidence that these insulting photographs of Saddam will not fuel the Resistance? They may not, in themselves, but add to that the reports on the way the US Military and Intelligence handled the Quran, the recent minimum sentences to your scapegoats from the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, the caught-on-tape point-blank shootings of Iraqis sometimes under the guise of mercy-killing, the lack of basic amenities, the continued siphoning of Iraqi resources and you will see why the insurgency is only growing and not declining as you hoped and continue to predict.

You just don't get it Mr. Bush. And neither does the West. Samuel P. Huntington correctly said in his book "The Clash of Civilizations": "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

It is about time you understand this. And about time your people realize that the Iraqi Resistance is not fighting to restore Saddam on the throne (they don't like him much either), but to rid the illegal occupiers off their land. You said yesterday "...it's hard for many in the Western world to comprehend...". If it is so difficult for you to comprehend their acts, why don’t you just leave the Iraqis alone. They will find their destiny. They have for 5000+ years. Leave them in peace. They do not deserve this misery (Photographs at this link are gruesome but real) you are inflicting on them in the guise of democracy.

And a closing word of advice. If it is peace that you really seek, first stop your illegal wars – both overt and covert. Close your military bases across the world. It does nothing – as we saw in Uzbekistan. Then revisit your foreign policy. And stop striving for global dominance.

Peace is achieved not by exerting superiority; but by mutual co-existence. Peace be with you.

Amma's grip - firm as ever!

2005-05-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

Amma's grip - firm as ever!

Everyone I have spoken to from Tamil Nadu or knowledgeable in TN politics always criticize Jayalalitha. I hear stories about long-delayed projects, corruption, favoritism, sycophantism, etc. But these don't seem to have made any impacts on the minds of the people in Kancheepuram and Gummidipoondi. When it was time to vote, they swept in the AIADMK, notwithstanding the recent controversy at the Kanchi Mutt and the arrests of the Shankaracharyas.

I enjoy reading T.V.R. Shenoy's articles and respect his political acumen. So this quote from him surprised me:
Jayalalitha is probably one of the finest administrators in India today. Whether it is maintaining law and order or prodding the bureaucracy to ensure civic services, Chennai is a nicer place to live than, say, Mumbai, Delhi, or perhaps even Bangalore. And the fact is that her government did a better job of relief and rehabilitation in the wake of the tsunami than neighbouring Kerala and Andhra Pradesh, and anyone who speaks of 'bungling' in Tamil Nadu should take a good hard look at its neighbours."

That should score him more than a few brownie points with Amma. Either he is completely out of touch with reality or I am talking to the wrong people about TN politics! I suspect it is less of the first (what can I say, I am a TVR fan) and more of the latter. I guess her victory can be attributed to her sincerity. Or her shrewdness in pulling in the sympathy vote. Smart administrator or not, she sure is a astute politician. It is not easy to beat an allinace with the likes of DMK, Congress, MDMK, PMK... in it!! Read the full article here.

This is the second home-coming for the erstwhile actress, the first being the 1998 polls after Rajni's famous words "Even God cannot save Tamil Nadu if Jayalalitha is voted back to power" sealed her fate in the 1996 Assembly polls. Politics sure is a funny game! Who would have imagined Rajni and Jayalalitha on the same stage. :D

Google Personalized... But I am not biting!

2005-05-19T17:11:00.000-07:00

Google Personalized... But I am not biting!

Google launched the personalized Home Page today. Google users can now decide what they would like to see on their Home Page - Gmail, BBC News, NYT, Weather, Stock, Quotes, etc.

I tried it to see what it gives me, but only for the duration of this post. As with the now discontinued Google Web Accelerator, I don't want Google to know what I am looking up on the web.

This is just another way for Google to gather rich data on query patterns tied to specific users. IMHO, they are reworking their Web Accelerator ploy here but restricting the info-gathering to the content presented on the Home Page. Google will now know the searches a specific user makes, the type of news articles, stocks, etc they are interested in. Also the data sources of interest, the preferred priority to each of these, etc. That is a lot of clickographic and demographic data. Good try Google, but I am not biting! Of course, this does not stop them from co-relating from my Gmail cookies, but I don't plan on making it any easier for them! :D

DDLJ - Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge

2005-05-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

DDLJ - Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge

I didn't realise this movie was still playing in the theatres! One of my favorite Bollywood movies. And I must sheepishly admit I saw it about 10 times (sometimes I had no option - the day after we saw it in the theatres, the movie was played again on a long-distance bus! :)). I wouldn't mind watching it again. This movie had everything working for it: Kajol, Shah Rukh, Kajol, Anupam Kher, Kajol; the music; excellent photography; tight screenplay; good direction and Kajol :D.

The movie is now into its 500th week in a theatre in Mumbai - Maratha Mandir theatre. And they claim the movie runs to packed houses on weekends and at 60% capacity on weekdays! That is phenomenal for a movie playing for the 10th year without a break. The location (near Mumbai Central and MSRTC) may have something to do with it; but the credit really goes to the magical team that created this wonderful movie. It had all the essential ingredients for a super-hit: songs, dances, comedy, dishum-dishum, tears... Go watch it again folks!

Update: Here is a recent review on Rediff.

When policies must be relaxed.

2005-05-06T15:49:00.000-07:00

When policies must be relaxed.

I am a stickler for processes and policies. But every policy and process must have some leeways. The process/policy and hence the system is respected when reasonable. But I think it is unfair to suspend a kid from school for 10 days for answering his cellphone during school hours. The enforcers didn't seem to care that the person calling him was his mom who is a soldier stationed in Iraq. And didn't care that he answered the call during the lunch hour! What does he say - "Sorry mom, can't talk to you now, I am chomping on a large burger. You can tell me how you escaped the mortar attack when I talk to you this weekend."? This is plain ridiculous. Well, on the bright side, the enforcers suspended him in lieu of an arrest for disorderly conduct!

35 times Lossless Compression

2005-05-05T16:22:00.000-07:00

35 times Lossless Compression

A young Indian, Arvind Thiagarajan, has developed an algorithm that can provide much superior compression than existing methods. His approach supposedly reduces the source image by 35 times and the compression is lossless too. Compare that with JPEG compressions on similar source images - Lossy compression and down to only 5 times the original size!

Arvind's approach uses a binary index to store the locations of the pixel instead of applying any transformations to it. Reads very simple. And it must work given that products based on this algorithm have been developed by his company and are being used in hospitals to store images such as echo cardiograms. They have also come out with a product for document imaging.

The Adobes of the world must be at his door by now to incorporate his methods in their imaging software. He has the distinction of winning the Junior Scientist award from Dr.Abdul Kalam.

Related links:

Article on Arvind in Rediff

His company MatrixView

More on the Technology

Zip thru the web... - No thanks!

2005-05-04T22:26:00.000-07:00

Zip thru the web... - No thanks!

After a long hiatus, I am back - for now. Plenty of links in my bookmark folder that I plan on posting - someday! :)

Anyways, today's big buzz (at least in Geekville) is Google's latest offering - a web accelerator for broadband connections. And though I religiously try everyone of their offerings, this is one that I am going to pass (though I did install it for the kicks but quickly uninstalled after trying a couple news sites). And the reason I am not very excited about it is cause Google uses its servers as the broker to serve content on the sites I visit. So essentially, they know the sites I am visiting. And that does not make me feel very comfortable. Also, I don't know how distinctly separate the gmail cookies would be from the accelerator cookies. So the chances of them connecting dots is even more with this. This, for the first time, makes me feel that Google is on a path to breaking its philosophy "Do no evil"!

Note: Instead of using the Google-sponsored Firefox as the example in the snapshot, they have used IE! About time the Mozilla foundation flexed its marketing muscle a little. :)

Sania Mirza does India proud!

2005-01-20T23:32:00.000-08:00

Sania Mirza does India proud!

As I write this, I am watching Sania Mirza battle Serena Williams in the 2005 Australian Open. Sania got a wildcard and made it to the third round so far. And the kiddo is putting on quite a fight. The first set was rather timid to begin with, but understandable given she is on one of the biggest stages in her career. She bounced back towards the end of the first set. In fact at the moment she is leading Serena in the second set. And on a triple break point! :) Feels really great to have her out there representing India. Mera Bharat Mahan! Sare Jahan se Acha!!

Kudos to the tough girl. Oh and she is very pretty too! :)

Score at the moment: Serena-Sania :: 6-1; 2-3 (Our girl leads the second set!!)
Commentary on ESPN now: Sania is the toughest competitor Serena has faced this far in the competition!

Update: Sania lost :( But she still won our hearts with her confident fight to the finish. Final scores: 6-1; 6-4.

Image to Text

2005-01-13T16:32:00.000-08:00

Image to Text

When you search on Toogle for an image, it runs the query on Google Image Search, pulls the first image that is returned by Google and then converts the image to text! Cool, eh?!?

Google Suggest - Demystified

2005-01-13T07:58:00.000-08:00

Google Suggest - Demystified

Google honoured me on my b'day with Google Suggest :) Spent sometime talking to Manu about its implementation today and found some interesting links.

Details on how it works here and here (very detailed walkthru). Here is a dictionary enhancement and its details. Even Firefox has a Google Suggest Extension.

While you are at this, in the Google Suggest search box, type "Google Su". One would think "Google Suggest" would top the list of suggested keywords. I don't think Google will be very happy with the results! :) At least, it indicates that the suggested keywords are not "yet" doctored or earning revenue for Google.

Related link: Sergey and Larry's Anatomy of a Search Engine paper submitted at Stanford.

To say No, shake your head...errr your phone

2005-01-12T18:23:00.000-08:00

To say No, shake your head...errr your phone

Samsung plans to unveil a new mobile phone that can detect motion. They claim the SCH-S310 can dial a number by writing the number in air(!!!) and can delete spam by shaking the phone!!! Also includes a 1.3 Meg Camera and a music player. Whats next? Compatibility sensors? 2 phones with compatible profiles that start beeping when they pass each other! :)

Very creative New Year greeting

2005-01-12T18:21:00.000-08:00

Very creative New Year greeting
(via Antrix)

Happy New Year folks!

Life is Random

2005-01-11T17:37:00.000-08:00

Life is Random

Apple's punchline and product is going to wipe out the competition in the flash world too. Recording is still not available; but at this price, the iPod Shuffle is a steal! More pictures. And finally unpacking the player.

I can't help repeating myself. I don't blame Apple for being so good; but it doesn't augur too well for the rest of the MP3 player manufacturers.

And heres where the title for this post came from.

Racism on the air

2005-01-11T07:56:00.000-08:00

Racism on the air

Free speech is good as is humour. But racism in the guise of humor is not funny. Here are a couple lines from Philadelphia-based Power 99 RJed by Star and Buc Wild.

Star (to customer support rep in India): Listen to me, you dirty rat eater. I'll come out there and choke the eff out of you (laughter).

Star: You're a filthy rat eater. I'm calling about my American six-year-old white girl. How dare you outsource my call? Get off the line, bitch (laughter, applause, end of call).

Heres a news article on this. The sound clip is available here. Other blog posts here and here.

After the death of the R&B singer Aaliyah in 2001, their show attempted to make light of the tragedy by playing the sound effect of a plane crashing, along with the sound of a woman screaming. That incident got them fired.

Star, whose real name is Troi Torain, was upset with J Lo when she used racist words in her song. But on his show, he sings a different tune.

Update (Jan 12): Star and Buc Wild were suspended by the station for making the offensive call to the call-center after it received more protest calls and emails than it had for any past incident.

Nimble Fingers

2005-01-10T15:56:00.000-08:00

Nimble Fingers
(via Vasti)

Here is a heart-wrenching short story by Anuradha Muralidharan. She was one of the winners of the "Highly Commended" prize in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Story competition. A must-read.

iPod Monopolizing the market?

2005-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

iPod Monopolizing the market?

iPod is probably the best designed hard-drive based MP3 player. But from a feature standpoint, it falls behind the iRiver H140 that has built-in in-line recording, FM radio, etc and is almost just as compact as the iPod is. iPod on the other hand relies on other products such as the iTalk to extend its feature set. With dedicated products such as the iTalk and iTrip, it is unlikely that Apple will build these features into the iPod. One would think this is a short-coming for the iPod. But its effective marketing and popularity has gotten it 90% of the market. And with car companies such as BMW and audio companies such as Pioneer and Alpine building adapters to the iPod, the rest of the pack will soon not prove to be any competition to the iPod at all. UNLESS, the industry defines a standard interface to the players. That way, when adapters are built, they are built to the standard interface and not to a specific brand. This will ensure there is fair competition in the market. Some regulation is required real soon. For now, I have to make do with using my FM transmitter to get my Nomad Zen Xtra to communicate with my Car music system.

Resources to iPod your car here and here.

Tragedy strikes Asia and Africa

2004-12-27T13:20:00.000-08:00

Tragedy strikes Asia and Africa

In the wake of Santa's sleighs came the massive earthquake and tsunamis that killed over 25000 people (current count) and left countless others homeless. A tragic end to the year. It is heartening to find numerous people coming together to help the affected masses. The Governments of these countries cannot by themselves help the affected. Please reach out and do your best to contribute/help those that are left stranded.

Update (Dec 30): Everyone is pitching in to help as best as they can. The count is over 116,000 now! :( Entire populations are missing or wiped off the face of the earth and maps altered. And bloggers make a big difference too.

Volunteers and Organizations involved in the rescue operations

Latest updates

An explanation of what happened.

Enhancing image searches - with public help

2004-12-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Enhancing image searches - with public help

A project at the Carnegie Mellon University is enlisting public help to tag images on the web to improve image findability. Tools such as Flickr made the idea of tagging images popular. When an image is searched, the search criteria is matched with the attributes associated with the image, and results displayed to the user. While Google uses automated means with some degree of success, the ESP Project allows the public to tag images via a game. People have fun playing the game, while tagging the images. The prototype search on their site does an incredible job of finding images that are a very good match of the search criteria. Play the game here. Search images here.

PowerSnap, the product I mentioned earlier on the blog, allows the user to tag images and then generates web-sites/slideshows by applying rules defined by the user on these tags.

About Belief, Passion and Determination

2004-12-23T16:07:00.000-08:00

About Belief, Passion and Determination
(via Antrix)

Ron Avitzur was part of a project at Apple that was shelved. And like so many others who have been part of cancelled projects, Ron was frustrated with the decision. He intensely believed that the product he was working on stood a fair chance. So, inspite of not being on the official rolls anymore (read as "unemployed and unpaid by Apple"), he continued to work on the product on the sly till it saw the light of day. This is a must-read story.

Here is a teaser:
We were saved by the layoffs that began that month. Twenty percent of Apple's fifteen thousand workers lost their jobs, but Greg and I were safe because we weren't on the books in the first place and didn't officially exist. Afterwards, there were plenty of empty offices. We found two and started sneaking into the building every day, waiting out in front for real employees to arrive and casually tailgating them through the door. Lots of people knew us and no one asked questions, since we wore our old badges as decoys.

Story on Slashdot. I hope someone makes a movie out of this one (Light shades of "Catch me if you can").

Odd twist to mail delivery tale

2004-12-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

Odd twist to mail delivery tale

This is from Monday's news: A UPS driver headed to a hospital to deliver some machine parts was involved in an accident. He was rushed to the same hospital to be treated for his head injuries. But the machine that was to be used to do the necessary tests on him was down and the parts required to fix the machine was in his delivery truck! Eventually, someone was sent back to the accident site to retrieve the parts from the truck. The fate of the driver is still unknown. Heres the news article.

Giant robot back in action

2004-12-22T06:41:00.000-08:00

Giant robot back in action

As a kid I would never miss the "Giant Robot" show on TV. I even remember being close to tears one evening when there was an unscheduled power cut and I missed most of the week's episode. Well, Carlos Owens has now resuscitated Giant Robot - in his backyard in Alaska! A very inspiring story this! The common man can achieve a lot more when his mind is set on it. Oh, and can also expose the unnecessary amounts organizations spend on their projects. Carlos has spent $15,000 so far while DARPA has spent about $50 million on a "somewhat" more advanced project!!

When teachers cheat...

2004-12-21T20:02:00.000-08:00

When teachers cheat...

Sad, but true. One of the most respected professions is now coming under scrutiny for alleged cheating. Guess they were doing their best to fulfil their Chief Executive's "No child left behind" policy. Anything goes I guess, when W's lies have to be pushed under the carpet.

Apple gets more help than it needs

2004-12-21T16:49:00.000-08:00

Apple gets more help than it needs

As though their marketing department was not effective, Apple has consumers creating ads for them. The one I liked best is available on the lower right of this related article. And heres another. Add to that creative ideas such as this one. Guess that explains why Apple is not able to meet the demand for iPod and its other products.

To begin with, iPod was not even born in Apple's labs. Here is the story that walks you thru the genesis of the iPod.

Personally, I think iRiver's H140 beats the iPod; but for now am happy with my 40GB Creative Nomad Zen Xtra.

And while you are here, check out how you may be judged based on your playlists.

Lost data? Here are some smart ways to get it back!

2004-12-21T16:09:00.000-08:00

Lost data? Here are some smart ways to get it back!

Often times we do something stupid and feel like kicking ourselves and think no one else would have done anything dumber. Well, next time, don't be so hard on yourself. There are folks out there who do their best to make sure you feel better about your "maybe-not-so-stupid" mistakes; that is, as long as you don't top them on the list. Some even go as far as making the ultimate sacrifice!

Order to your chaotic visuals - with PowerSnap

2004-12-10T08:11:00.000-08:00

Order to your chaotic visuals - with PowerSnap

In the last 2 years, one of my friends, Ayush, has been working on a photo organization utility that he named PowerSnap. While he did the heavy lifting, I helped with some of the design and usability issues and also QA whenever time permitted. The product was finally launched today. Its a wonderful feeling to see the garage project hit the market. And believe me, it has gone thru significant evolution from what we first saw to what it is now. Late nights, long brainstorming sessions...in the end, a satisfying product. It still needs a few add-ons, but Ayush figured it has spent too much time in the labs and it is about time to showcase it. End-user feedback is the means to a better product! Ayush has done a terrific job in pulling it all together.

A trial version is available for download. Comprehensive support is available on the site itself thru user guides, FAQ, etc. There is also a support forum where you can post your questions and suggestions. Sometimes you may get a response from yours truly since I am a moderator on the forum! :) Try it out when you can. And, please send in your feedback.

I came across an article on Wired a couple days ago on the need for better organization of images. PowerSnap meets a lot of the needs mentioned in the article and future releases will have much extended capabilities.

IBM (PC) bought by Lenovo...China flexes its muscle

2004-12-08T01:18:00.000-08:00

IBM (PC) Take Over...China flexes its muscle

Finally! Turns out the rumors from the last couple weeks are indeed true. Lenovo, a Chinese company bought IBM's PC business for $1.25 Billion. When I first heard about the possibility, I was little surprised, given the current consolidation efforts by large companies. But the price tag of just $1.2 Billion for IBM shocked me. Compare that with Cingular's purchase of ATT Wireless for 40 odd billion dollars. Agreed, its the manufacturng vs services; but its still a very small figure for a company of IBM's stature.

But I guess this is China's not-so-subtle indicator to the world of its capabilities. A lot of people will likely sit up and take notice now. Watch out Dell! You may find China's less expensive overheads and costs a big challenge.

Cell Phone to Sun Flower

2004-12-06T06:45:00.000-08:00

Cell Phone to Sun Flower"

Now here is a smart product. Very creative and intelligent; with the right tones of marketing it will do awesome - I am sure. Keep Earth GREEN folks!

The abuse continues...

2004-12-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

The abuse continues...

You would think after all the publicity, the abuse in Iraq would have stopped. Well, think again and again.

MSN Spaces (Beta) launched

2004-12-04T13:54:00.000-08:00

MSN Spaces (Beta) launched

(Initially posted on MSN Spaces. Duplicated here.)

Microsoft has launched the beta version of its blogging utility. This time around they are trying to get into the mainstream earlier on in the life of a concept thats caught on very well among the masses. I have been on blogger for over 1.5 years and am most likely going to stick around there. But my curiosity got the better of me and I thought I would spend some time exploring Microsoft's offering. And hence this post - more of a lab work than a serious blog - at least for now. I may have to rethink that in the not so distant future given Microsoft's limitless resources to churn out cool features more rapidly.

I already like the way I can manage my blog layout in Spaces. Microsoft has essentially carried into the tool the features from Sharepoint. And the ability to seamlessly integrate various Microsoft offerings puts Microsoft in a strong position. I can see MSN Chat, Hotmail, Sharepoint, One Note etc come together to give the end user a one-stop shop for "all" communications.

Maybe I should start duplicating my blogger posts here too - will give me an opportunity to play around with this more. Will see. It should'nt be a big effort since both blogger and spaces allows blog posts via email. And Scott Isaacs, the man who built the Rich Text Editor that folks are used to in Hotmail, MSN Groups, etc, has provided some nice tips on the BlogIt tool that should help me move posts easily between blogger and spaces.

Bush's Illegitimate War

2004-12-03T03:03:00.000-08:00

Bush's Illegitimate War

Here are a few images from Fallujah. And here is a site that apologizes to the world for voting Bush to power. There is a lot I want to say about the Americans approving Bush's war; but sometimes some thoughts are best left unsaid!

Homeland Security Bill passed

2004-12-03T02:58:00.000-08:00

Homeland Security Bill passed
(via Jeff Richter)

The new Homeland Security Bill has passed. Things will be different now and Internet surfing will be tracked by what the FBI calls a "non-intrusive method." The FBI says you will not notice anything different. For a demonstration, click here. The FBI's message to the public - "We are watching you!"

Watch what you drink - you may end up poorer by $10,000!

2004-12-01T17:35:00.000-08:00

Watch what you drink - you may end up poorer by $10,000!

A hotel in New York has a $10,000 Martini on its menu. After a week on the menu, the Martini that includes a diamond at the bottom, is yet to be ordered. Dorothy Parker used to be a frequent guest at the hotel, the Algonquin Hotel, and her ode to martinis adorns the hotel napkins:
I love a martini - but two at the most. Three I'm under the table; Four, I'm under the host. :)

On Bush's IQ

2004-12-01T07:26:00.000-08:00

On Bush's IQ
(via Vasti)

Here is a fun ad in Chennai, India.

What the wisemen have to say - to Google

2004-11-18T17:33:00.000-08:00

What the wisemen have to say - to Google

Time to get that long thesis completed? Trouble figuring out the optimal approach to your problem? Now you can have PhDs and other wise men answering your questions - for free! Google's new search algorithm indexes "scholarly" material - basically academic research that is kept separate from commercial content. Google also claims that no ads will be served along with the search results.

Related links: Work in progress in Google's labs.

What else went for a swim?

2004-11-18T17:14:00.000-08:00

What else went for a swim?

Can't help but laugh when you see these pictures. Click on the image below to see what follows this rescue mission.

Proposed law to prevent remote hunting!

2004-11-16T22:32:00.000-08:00

Proposed law to prevent remote hunting!

Some moron is planning on putting the lives of animals a mouse-click away. A kind-hearted fellow human has proposed a rule that anyone hunting animals covered by state law must be physically on site when they shoot!

Firefox extensions - Whats coming next?

2004-11-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

Firefox extensions - Whats coming next?

Some extensions for the officially released browser Firefox are real cool (read the Nov 9th post "Mozilla's Firefox launched!"). Extensions are in fact one of the big plusses for Firefox over IE. But this extension takes the cake - an extension to track the homeland security threat level! :) Funstuff apart check out some of the very useful extensions including FoxyTunes - an audio controller built into the browser! Honestly it won't buy me much, because the 2 applications that are well hidden on my desktop are the browser and winamp! That way I appear more productive!! :) I prefer the audio controls on my keyboard.

Is anyone listening?

2004-11-15T22:35:00.000-08:00

Is anyone listening?

Sad but true stories from Iraq: Here's one. Here's another. And here is one more. Countless others; each tragic-ridden.

Cold blooded murder.

2004-11-15T21:33:00.000-08:00

Cold blooded murder.

About a week ago, one US soldier claimed to have killed a wounded insurgent to put him out of his mercy (Read Nov 5th post titled "Mercy killing or cold-blooded murder?"). Another US soldier shot dead an unarmed wounded Iraqi and was caught doing that on tape. Wonder what his excuse will be and where the investigation will go. Many argue that the American incursion does not constitute a war crime and that most killed are terrorists. They must first see these pictures. And these too. History will not forget this and other heinous crimes commited by the Americans.

Mughal-e-Azam

2004-11-12T15:55:00.000-08:00

Mughal-e-Azam

I am a sucker for old movies, esp if it is historically based, more so if it stars Madhubala - one of my favourite actresses! :) And Mughal-e-Azam is at the top of the list. The colourized version of the movie has now been released. The music conversion to Dolby was supervised by the original music composer, 84-year old Naushad. A good review of the colourized movie here and more links related to it here.

More Madhubala here, here, here and... oh well, you just can't get enough of her! :)

A Befitting Farewell

2004-11-12T13:29:00.000-08:00

A Befitting Farewell

For 3 years they kept him isolated; but that in no means took away his people's love for him. Plans for a guard of honour and traditional burial where denied by the Palestinian people. Instead they gave him a very emotional people's burial. And this was mainly the Ram Allah crowd. Israel prevented crowds from the West Bank and other Arab nations from attending. It is hard to imagine the chaos that would have reigned had the gates been opened to everyone to attend. A befitting farewell to a people's hero indeed.

A Nation Orphaned!

2004-11-10T23:05:00.000-08:00

A Nation Orphaned!

Yasser Arafat, a legend in his own right, passed away at 3:30PM Paris time. A sad milestone in the history of Palestine. Far removed from the region, Arafat's life epitomized to me the life of every Palestinian - determined and defiant in the face of tragic circumstances enforced by a brute state that was ably supported in its human rights violations by the worst war criminal in the history of mankind. A Statesman and a Patriot, he lived his life for his country. He belongs with other greats such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Fidel Castro, Che Guvera, and Prabhakaran. To some they are freedom fighters, for others terrorists. What is unquestionable is their passion and unflinching quest for what they believed in.

When in 9th grade I wrote a poem about a Martyr, the English in the poem inspired by the previous night's veiwing of Hamlet. I do not recollect every line I wrote, but the gist remains. And it gives me great pride to dedicate it to him and the other legends - Yasser Arafat.
(Incomplete version of the poem "The Martyr")

Rise shalt he not
He who spilt blood for his countrymen,
Rise shalt he not
He who fought for every piece of his motherland;

...some missing lines...

Rise shalt he not
From his shallow grave,
Rise shalt he not
From his heavenly abode;

But there shalt he dwell
In our hearts
Rising time and time again
Never to be ever forgotten.

May his soul rest in peace. In his death he has achieved the freedom that he so longed would happen in his times. Le roi est mort. Vive le roi! (The King is dead, Long live the King!)

Miserable failure

2004-11-09T23:32:00.000-08:00

Miserable failure

I don't know the specifics of the Google algorithm to index and query pages, but it doesn't seem to be in line with the 2004 US Popular vote. Go to google.com and search for "miserable failure". The results will look like this. Guess who else is going to be in Gitmo soon! :)

Related links: Google's Technology - demystified!

Mozilla's Firefox launched!

2004-11-09T17:00:00.000-08:00

Mozilla's Firefox launched!

Mozilla's Firefox 1.0 was released today after spending a long time in beta. Firefox is my browser of choice and I have been using it for a very long time now. The earliest forms of Mozilla that I used were buggy and had its share of "user" challenges (I still can't believe it took them a few versions before they realized a warning message is necessary when the user tries to close a window with multiple tabs.). Am glad we are over those hurdles now. Here is a brief history of Firefox and here are some reasons why I dig Firefox (earlier known as Phoenix and then Firebird):

Tabbed browsing: For the uninitiated, in IE, everytime you want to open link from within a IE window, either you load the link in the same window or you open a new window. With firefox, you have the added option of opening it as a tab WITHIN the same browser window. Why would you need this: For me browsing is like running through a dictionary. I open the dictionary to lookup a word and that leads me on to other words and very soon I am a "walking dictionary", at least for a couple hours till my memory cells fade out! So when I open a web page, I start finding other interesting links and I soon find myself with 10 different windows. With tabbed browsing, I basically have only one window with 10 tabs. My taskbar is less crowded and if my manager walks into my cube I have to minimize only one window! :) So heres the math:
10 interesting links imply: in IE -> 10 windows; in Firefox: 1 window with 10 tabs.
Of course, Firefox does provide the ability to open a link in a new window too.

Searching: This and tabbed browsing are my favs. Though it supports "CTRL + f" to open the FIND window, it supports a simpler search method. Hit the "/" key and start typing the word you are interested in and the browser jumps to the phrase as you type it. "CTRL + g" finds the next occurance and so on. If you land on a link, hit enter and it opens the link in the browser. How cool is that!

Bookmark management: Much better management of bookmarks than in IE. You can associate a keyword to a bookmark.
Example: Set the keyword to google.com to "g". If you now type "g" in the location bar, it will replace the keyword with the URL and go to google.com. No extra search toolbars; less clutter.

Quick Searches: Do you use google frequently to look up stuff? Or do you jump to a dictionary site such as www.m-w.com often? Wouldn't it be nice if you dont have to first go to google.com or m-w.com before you can lookup the word/phrase by just typing in the word/phrase in the location bar? Quick Search in Firefox allows just that. Example: If I want to lookup "R.L.Stevenson's Vagabond" on Google (my favourite poem), I just type "g R.L.Stevenson's Vagabond" in the location bar. And the google search results for my query is immediately loaded. :) To set it up, define a bookmark for google, set the keyword to "g" and the location to "http://www.google.com/search?q=%s". Anything you type after g in the location bar will be taken as the query string for the search. And you can type in queries just like you would in google with characters such as + or enclosed in "". To create other quick searches, use similar logic to construct the location string.

Live bookmarks: RSS feeds can be read into the bookmarks toolbar. So, you know when a new feed is available from your favourite website even without going to the site.

Open source: Implies more choice for the customer. Developers worldwide continue to enhance the browser and to build extensions to it for specific features. This site should you give you a general idea about the rich options available. This one too.

And numerous other features such as built-in pop-up blocking, better security than in IE, an efficient download manager, multiple extensions, numerous keyboard and mouse shortcuts, etc round it up. Oh! And its free!!! :)

My recommendation: Go for it! I still use IE, but only if the page does not render well in Firefox which happens a few times esp when the site is flash-driven or sometimes when there are embedded media objects.

Wonder what else went wrong!

2004-11-05T14:16:00.000-08:00

Wonder what else went wrong!

3,893 known issues because of software glitches. How many remain to be found?

Mercy killing or cold-blooded murder?

2004-11-05T01:51:00.000-08:00

Mercy killing or cold-blooded murder?

The cowboy attitude of the invaders has not ceased since the invasion last year. The "shoot first, ask later" approach cost 7 more Iraqi civilian lives in August - one of them after he was "put to sleep" in order to put him out of his misery by the American troops.

First they put him in a miserable state and then they put him out of his misery! But I guess this too is in line with the justification for the invasion - to put the Iraqis out of their misery by removing their dictator! So I guess the US soldiers just carried out the US Government's policy that recently received the American public mandate to continue with its war crimes.

US Courts deadlocked too?

2004-11-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

US Courts deadlocked too?

There has been talk about the US Presidential elections being a tie or neither candidate winning a majority. In this eventuality, if the House of Representatives fails to elect the President by Inauguration Day, then the Senate-elecetd Vice-President would stand-in as President till the deadlock is resolved.

Now, in the eventuality of any litigation, then like it happened in 2000, the Supreme Court will decide who the next President will be. Eventually, the United States will have a President. Or so I thought. As it turns out, it is not so simple.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist who was scheduled to return to the Supreme Court from Cancer treatment this week, is still not back. Unfortunately, all evidence suggests that the Cancer was not completely removed.

So, if the 2004 elections end up in the Supreme Court and if Justice Rehnquist is unable to participate on the case, then the Supreme Court itself may be deadlocked 4-4. Should Justice Rehnquist step down, then Bush may appoint the next Chief Justice and that does not augur of any fairness in the final decision. Should this happen, we will have a democracy, where the President is self-appointed!

On second thoughts, that doesn't sound too bad. The US has "successfully" installed "democracies" in quite a few nations run by US-appointed leaders and is in the process of doing that across other places. If it is good for those nations, it must be good for the US too.

US Elections - demystified

2004-11-02T06:16:00.000-08:00

US Elections - demystified

The last time Presidential elections were held in the US, I had just arrived. I was still naive and ignorant of the difference between the popular vote and the electoral vote. This time around am a lot wiser.

In the 2000 elections, when it finally came down to Florida, most networks handed Florida to Al Gore until Fox News came along and said Bush was the winner in Florida and hence the 43rd US President. What followed was quite a circus. Eventually the US had a President with more electoral votes and less popular votes. Now how can that be? If the electoral votes are based on the popular votes and the popular votes go to one candidate, how can the electoral votes go to the other candidate? A few websites and long conversations later, I have better clarity - I think! Thanks to Surabh, Sudhi and Manu for the long conversations that helped in resolving some of this.

Fundamentals - let me lay the groundwork before we go into the details:

Popular Vote: The vote of the people is called the Popular vote. It is the sum total of all the votes cast by the people for the candidates. Example: Of a total of 125 million people who cast the vote, 75 million may vote for Candidate A and 50 million may vote for Candidate B. If the popular vote was the vote used to elect the President, then by virtue of the majority votes, Candidate A would be the elected President. This is followed in countries such as India to elect their leaders.

Electoral Vote: Instead of taking the popular vote into consideration, each region may nominate one or more persons called Electors to represent the region in the selection of the President. This will help, among other issues, remove any regional bias in the election of the leader. Example: If Candidate A is very popular in the Western part of the country and if that region has a bigger population, then based on the popular vote, it is most likely that Candidate A will be the elected leader. The regional bias gives Candidate A an unfair advantage. As a result, interests of the people in the Western region will dominate the leader's policies. People who follow Cricket in India, will be able to easily relate to this. On numerous occassions, players from a specific region made it to the national team because the selectors had a regional bias. In order to make it a more even play-field, each region is allocated a fixed number of electoral votes based on the population size (this may be updated whenever a census is carried out). This system applies to the USA in the Presidential elections. In my estimate, in this Presidential elections each electoral vote maps to 0.5 million people. Because, California has a population of about 27.5 million, the state has 55 electoral votes. The electoral votes are cast by the Electors to elect the President.

Selection of the electors: Each state has its own rules to how Electors are nominated. Electors are often selected to recognize their service and dedication to their political party. They may be State elected officials, party leaders, or persons who have a personal or political affiliation with the Presidential candidate. In some states, the political parties nominate electors at their State party conventions or by a vote of the party's central committee in each State. In some others, the voters in the State choose the electors on the day of the general election. Electors are essentially figureheads. They cast their votes based on the popular vote. So if California votes for Candidate A, then the electors for California will all cast their votes for Candidate A. This is the expectation, but it is really upto the electors. Personally, I see that as a big loophole. Because, a candidate can essentially buy out the electors and get them to vote in his/her favour irrespective of the popular vote. Statistically, I believe 99% of the times, the electors have voted in accordance to the traditions; i.e., they have cast their votes to the candidate who has secured the popular vote.

Now that the fundamentals have been established, let us look at how the electoral votes come into play and how a President who loses the popular vote can still become the President.

In the 2000 elections, Al Gore won the popular vote, but the electoral vote went in George Bush's favour. Some folks believe another recount in Florida would have given Al Gore the state, but the Supreme Court thought otherwise. So the circus in 2000 gave the US George Bush as its 43rd President. Will the 2004 elections be as close and lead on to another circus or would we have a straight winner? We will know shortly as the US goes to vote its President for the next 4 years.

Related links

A nice primer to the electoral college.

A good FAQ on the electoral college.

Fahrenheit 9/11 online

2004-10-31T11:42:00.000-08:00

Fahrenheit 9/11 online

As the countdown to election day begins, the temperature is on the rise. Michael Moore's widely-acclaimed documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 is available for viewing online or as downloads. Numerous Kerry supporters have posted different formats of this available online for no charge. And this appears to have Michael's implicit support. These will be available for a limited time only, possibly through election day (Nov 2, 2004).

Watch the movie online here. Download the movie here or here.

Some of these formats may require BitTorrent to download.

US Elections Tracker

2004-10-31T11:27:00.000-08:00

US Elections Tracker

Numerous polls, numerous opinions. The gap razor-thin, at least based on these statistics. Here are a couple sites that track the key votes - electoral votes.
This site is by a Kerry supporter.
This one is by a Bush supporter.

2004 elections in Florida - revisited

2004-10-30T10:54:00.000-07:00

2004 elections in Florida - revisited

Check this hilarious movie on what voters can expect on Nov 2nd when they go into vote for the next American President.

The Charge of the Light Brigade - October 25, 1854.

2004-10-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

The Charge of the Light Brigade - October 25, 1854.

It is over a year since my last post. Work and work-related travels kept me away from the blog. My apologies to the visitors who continued to come in regularly looking for updates. I will begin the posts with one that made a big impact on me when in school, and still does.

One of the poems that left an indelible mark on me as I was growing up was "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Lord Alfred Tennyson. In flowing poetry, Lord Tennyson lucidly narrates the ill-fated wild charge carried out during the Crimean war exactly 150 years ago on October 25, 1854. His poem carries the heavy emotions and passions that drove those 673 men down the slope into the firing guns. And though they knew it was not the wisest path to take, to man they rallied and obeyed the illogical orders. A third of the force were killed. Miscommunications, egos and poor leadership cost the British 100-200 brave lives.

The Crimean war was the first war to have media coverage. Folks back home got to read about the blood and gory within 3 weeks of its happening. William Howard Russell witnessed the charge and wrote in the Times:
They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war. We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses! Surely that handful of men were not going to charge an army in position?

Alas, it was but too true - their desperate valour knew no bounds, and far indeed was it removed from its so-called better part - discretion.

And this prose inspired Lord Tennyson's unforgettable lines in his poem:
Canon to right of them,
Canon to left of them,
Canon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Boldy they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the Six hundred.

And
Was there a man dismayed?
Not though the soldier knew
Some one had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

And though not a major blunder or one that caused heavy casualties, William's account and Lord Tennyson's poem ensured this charge from the Battle of Balaclava was never forgotten.

To date, Lord Tennyson's poem fills me with sadness and disgust at the waste of life. A loved one, a family, a son, a daughter - a void that can be filled with no other. And all at the bidding of those in the higher echelons of power as they move their chess pawns across the table. War is a shame.

Related links:

The poem in Lord Tennyson's voice. The recording was made in 1890 and is far from perfect.

Historic background on the charge.

A brief description of the course of events that led to the disaster.

The second Victoria cross was awarded to a soldier from the Light Brigade - Trooper Samuel Parkes.

2003-08-02T18:10:00.000-07:00

From the heart of Iraq

Robert Fisk has been reporting from within Iraq since before the war began and has proven to be a thorn in America's deceptive war numerous times. Here are a few of his latest articles with snippets:

Iraq Isn't Working
They protest in the streets, especially against the aggressive American military raids, and they protest in the press. Much good does it do them. When ex-Iraqi soldiers demonstrated outside Bremer's office at the former Presidential Palace, US troops shot two of them dead. When Falujah residents staged a protest as long ago as April, the American military shot 16 dead. Another 11 were later gunned down in Mosul. During two demonstrations against the presence of US troops near the shrine of Imam Hussein at Karbala last weekend, US soldiers shot dead another three. "What a wonderful thing it is to speak your own minds," Lt-Gen Sanchez said of the demonstrations in Iraq last week. Maybe he was exhibiting a black sense of humour.

Al-Jazeera Accuses US of Harassment in Row Over "Bias"
The antagonism between Washington and Al-Jazeera goes back to the 2001 bombing of Afghanistan when, after the station showed a tape of Osama bin Laden, a US cruise missile hit the Kabul bureau. Then in April, after beaming pictures of Iraqi civilians mutilated by US air raids and tape of American prisoners in Iraqi hands, a US jet targeted the Baghdad bureau, killing a reporter. Al-Jazeera had earlier given the co-ordinates of the offices to the Pentagon to prevent any accidental bombing.

American Agents are Blamed for Raid That Became a Massacre
"Why did they shoot at the innocent?" he asked. "What did we do to the Americans? We were only going to post a letter. They shot at us from 50 metres away. Why?"

The United States, of course, has refused to sign up to the International Criminal Tribunal for fear its soldiers serving overseas may be forced to appear before it.

US Troops Turn Botched Saddam Raid Into A Massacre
A doctor at the Yarmouk hospital, which received four of the dead, turned on me angrily last night, shouting: "If an American came to my emergency room, maybe I would kill him."

2003-08-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

Loyalists abound

Major combats been declared over for more than a couple months now. The regime is supposed to be gone. But the loyalists remain. Fanatical at times! Meanwhile the human rights violations continue unabated. And they wonder why they are hated! Wonder if justice will ever see the light of day! :(

To borrow from Salam Pax's blog, a Samuel P. Huntington quote:

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

And the deception goes on...

2003-07-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

Drive into the night

For sometime I had been hearing quite some about Jhankaar Beats. When in India I had purchased the audio CD for Manu. The soundtrack didn't impress me much. Manu convinced me that when I see the movie I would change my mind about the music. So finally, on Tuesday night I got the cassette and watched the movie. And Manu was right in a way. After the song sequences I was impressed, but not much. After quite sometime I had seen a fairly entertaining Hindi movie. When the movie was finally over, I was not sleepy anymore and decided to drive to work to update the blog (some sense of priorities that!). Half way there, I decided I was being overly connected (mails, chats, phone...) and decided against going to the office. At the next possible exit, i turned around and headed North to San Francisco. My previous visits to the mountains off the Golden Gate have always been fun. Not too many people out on the streets. Not too many cops! And the splendour of the city all open for me to relish in.

As I usually do when I head towards the bridge, I took a detour to the Palace of Fine Arts. In its grounds we are instantaneously transported in time to the ruins of Greece/Rome. A spectacular main structure with imposing walls around that are built to look like it was part of the "Acropolis of Athens". It reminds me very much of the Propylaea. A calm lake with numerous ducks and a few swans adorn it on one side and a theatre and exploratorium are present on the other side.

In the evenings, the palace grounds are beautifully lit up. The palace can be seen from miles away and presents a soothing feeling to the beholder. When I got there that night it was about 2AM. It was eerily silent and life seemingly had come to a standstill within its grounds. The place left me transfixed - the huge main structure, the high walls, the still lake, tall trees, soft wet grass on the grounds, the moon beautifully shinining down and enveloping the whole area in a soft shade of white and its reflection in the lake. Can't help but envy the residents of the houses surrounding the Palace - all within a stone's throw away. :)

From there I headed towards the Golden Gate. As I turned onto the stretch from where the bridge becomes visible, all I saw was a huge wall of white stretching from the ground to the skies above. There was no sign of the bridge. I was soon enveloped by the thick fog, visibility down to about 5 feet in front of my car. Having been on the bridge numerous times, I knew I was on it, but could see nothing of it. Not the sides nor its huge supporting structures. I had whiteness all around with only the road blinkers leading me on. When I reached the other end, I looped around to drive into the Marin Headlands hoping the fog wouldn't be much up there - a case of extreme optimism! I was curving along the steep mountain roads with 3 feet of visible road in front of me. I pulled into the small fort-like structure near the base of the mountains from where the Golden Gate usually appears to be a couple feet away. And all I could ever see, no matter how much I strained, was the white fog wall. I could hear the ocean waves lashing against the rocks on the other side of the fort.

The darkness, the noise the wind made as it swirled through the trees on the surrounding hills and the white wall scared me no end. Everytime someone has asked me if I believe in the existence of ghosts and supernatural events, I have always shrugged my shoulders and said I have not thought about it. And those mountains were the last place I wanted to be solitarily analysing those thoughts. Half carried by my scared legs and half blown along by the wind, I quickly reached the relative safety of my car (my car has a good security system built in and I strongly believe it can keep out even ghosts - if they exist that is! - or so I would like to believe. Anyone who doesn't think so, save those thoughts - I am not listening!!). I was surprised at how fast my car could move even through the dense fog with just 3-feet visibility. I headed down the mountains to the other side of the bridge and into the historic town of Sausalito (I think Sausalito is about a century old - and they already call it a historic town! Wonder why!!).

Sausalito is a beautiful town to spend a night in. At 3 in the morning, I had the entire stretch of the coastline to myself. And the parking lot too - that is a remarkable achievement in itself given the length of time I have had to wait in the past when I arrived in the town in more earthly hours and struggled to find 1 parking spot. Pleased with myself on my latest accomplishment, I hopped towards the pier and spent a good half hour staring into the night. Surprisingly there was not much of a fog here. Numerous private yatchs lined the pier to my left, a nice wooden restaurant was perched alongside. In front of me was the bay, occassional waves lashing the rocks a few feet below from where I stood. And again, the moon was out in all its splendour, lighing up the ocean for me.

With a long day ahead of me, I decided to catch on some sleep and locked myself in the car and dozed off for a couple hours; not before calling Manu to give him my spill on Jhankaar Beats.:) When i woke up at 5:30, dawn had already arrived. As i stepped out of the car, a nice cool breeze swept in from the ocean. Since I was anyway planning to jog on getting back home, I decided to instead jog through Sausalito and explore the place some more. I tried to stay as close to the pier as i could so I could look out into the ocean as I ran. Within a mile, the houses and shops blocked out my view and I was soon running through a very sleepy town. A few folks out walking their dogs looked on strangely as they saw me run by them in my jeans, sweatshirt and windcheater! :) Soon realising I was running late, but still not wanting to take the same route back, I circled into the hills and came across some very quaint houses built below ground level with simple but beautiful porticos. Most every house had a small garden. When I reached the top of one of the hills I stopped to take in the view from the hilltop. Around me were houses nestled in the hills, a thin mist screen covering them. In the distance was the vast sea, with a couple ships and a few boats. The Sun was peeking out from behind a few clouds. A few vehicles were plying the roads below. For a moment I felt like I was in dreamland.

By the time I reached my car, I was already running late. It was almost 7:30 and I had to get to work by 9. Enough time to just make it in I thought. By the time I reached the Marin Headlands, it was too tempting not to stop again to boo the ghosts, err spirits, errr... whatever they were that had scared me away the previous night. My belief that fogs clear away in the day was proven wrong. The fog was thicker than it was the night before. From where I should have been seeing the bridge, all I could hear was the cars plying on it. Not a tinge of the famous International Orange! With nothing much to see, I quickly got back to the car and headed homeward.

From that point in time onwards I seemed to have stepped into the real world. I was faced with a toll booth at the start of the bridge with about 20 cars in front of me and hardly budging. Past the booth, I found myself in fender-to-fender traffic. A ocean of difference seeping in within a couple of miles of each other: a blissful town on one end and a bustling metropolis on the other! And I smiled on as I drove home humming to the music of Rahman's latest masterpiece "Boys".

2003-07-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

Icarus II

Quite some feat this! I was very intrigued when I read about the planned attempt and hoped Felix would make it across the English Channel successfully. Jumping out from 30,000 feet into an atmosphere at 60 below freezing, Felix headed towards the French coast appearing more like Superman out to get his breakfast from across town early in the morning. Gaining 4 feet horizontally for every foot drop vertically, Felix touched ground safely in under 10 minutes.

His flight did not go without incident. When he deployed his parachute a few hundred feet from ground, it became entangled with the 6-foot carbon wings fixed to his back. He managed to cut off the entangled wires even as the crowd on the ground anxiously looked on. When he touched ground, he became the first human being to fly across the English Channel with nothing more than an aerodynamic jumpsuit and a carbon wing. Quite an accomplishment for the Austrian who has taken quite some risks in the past. Thankfully, Icarus II emulated Daedalus and not Icarus.

2003-07-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

Some futures trading this!

Amazingly creative idea. But as with any creative idea, support is hard to come by and is spurned early on.

It has its share of creativity, hypocrisy, stupidity and insensitivity. Imagine someone placing a bet on Bush/Cheney/Rummy's head! They would have been called terrorists for instigating an assasination attempt(s). But here we have the Pentagon planning on a complete marketplace. They even managed to get substantial funds. Given the state of the economy, it was worth a shot I guess. It would give jobs to displaced software engineers, market analysts and of course to Taliban and Al Qaeda men on the run! A little encouragement and a few futures on terrorist attacks indeed makes trading a fun career.

2003-07-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

In nature's lap

Have been wanting to write about each of my trips - but somehow never got around to it. So decided to sit through and pen the trips from the last couple weeks. Will begin with the Portland trip.

Flew into Portland on Saturday last and was welcomed by surprisingly warm weather. I always believed that Portland and Seattle share similar weather. My trips to Seattle left me feeling nice and pleasant about the weather - the not bright, very light occassional showers, pleasant smell from the freshly wet soil type of weather...but I never thought I could live in that kind of weather through the year. Too soft (dull/pale???) for my liking. So when the warm blast hit me in Portland I was very surprised. Well, turns out that this is the one month when they enjoy this weather. In a few days they will be back to the "softer" weather, or so I am given to believe.

Surabh, Ravi and I soon set off to see the "few" waterfalls along the Columbian Gorge. The roads were much narrower than the Californian roads and was for long stretches covered by huge trees on either side of the road. Made a wonderful canopy protecting us from the harsh Sun. In a way, it reminded me of Highway 1, just that the roads here ran along the Columbian river's banks. First stop was at the Vista House. I was completely taken in by the astounding view. I would easily rate this among the top 10 best places I have ever seen.

Picture this: A huge mountain range slit in the middle by the Columbian river flowing softly along. The mountain on the left is completely covered with trees. As you scan the horizon from the right, you see this green mountain and as you gradually move to the left you will see the Columbian river. Further to the left you see the other half of the mountain. This one however is only spotted with trees and some foliage. The rest of the area is taken up by huge golden fields for as far as the eye can see, intermittently sprinkled with huge trees. And amidst this natural beauty is the Vista House. Constructed at the supposed highest spot on the historical Columbian River Highway, the Crown Summit, the Vista House sits on a cliff overlooking the river providing unlimited views up and down the river. And that view is a must see. The Vista House was undergoing some repairs when we went there. I would love to go back there sometime in the evening when the Vista House is all spruced up and see what it looks like with a setting Sun in the background.

We then drove on into the mountains to see a "few" waterfalls. The one that took my breath away was the Multnomah Falls. The Multnomah Falls cascades in 2 segments: a 542 feet drop onto a ledge, flows a little on the ledge before plunging another 69 feet. Just above the ledge is a person-made bridge that is almost a picture out of the movies. A winding road leads up to the bridge. The trail leads further on to the top of the Falls. Late and tired we skipped if for a later time. The best view is from near the Falls Lodge at the base of the Falls. From here we can see the higher Falls crash down on the ledge, the beautiful bridge suspended above it and then the lower Falls gently hitting the base. I am sure the view in winter is just as spectacular, but in a different way. I saw a few pictures of the frozen Falls and it was very inviting.

Oregon sure has a rich trove of breathtaking wonders.

2003-07-28T19:24:00.000-07:00

War guilty?

How far will this fight against the war-mongers go? Must appreciate the Greek optimism given the events of the recent past:

Triggering events:

Belgian move against Sharon angers Israel

US chides Belgium over rights law

US anger at war crimes threat

US general 'war crimes' case filed

Resulting actions:

US attacks Belgium war crimes law

Belgium may sidestep war crimes law

Belgium restricts 'genocide law'

Belgium gives in to US on war crimes law

2003-07-28T18:52:00.000-07:00

F1 in India

16 circuits worldwide and a massive following! Die-hard fans of each of the manufacturers line up year after year to watch the cars disappear around the corner and then patiently await it at the opposite corner.

For a long time I had wondered what kept them on the stands with nothing to do except those few moments the car zips by them. Not that they can catch a glimpse of their hero - helmet and all; but the waving and shrieking doesn't stop. I was first drawn to the sport when I read a reader's digest article on the madman and the professor and their rivalry. And so I ended up following the entire 1997 season and was disgusted at Schumacher's lack of sportsmanship - die-hard fans attributed his attempt to take out his nearest rival Villeneuve to the game's strategy. Anyway, that does not take away the respect I have for Schumi's driving skills. :)

This year I will finally get to see first hand at Indianapolis what really drives people to stand in the hot Sun 3 days in a row to see zipping cars!

There are attempts now being made to bring F1 to India. Here are the Indian F1 kids: Narain Karthikeyan and Karun Chandhok.

2003-07-18T19:08:00.000-07:00

Democracy from within

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan made a very nice point when he said democracy should not be imposed on Iraq from the outside - it has to come from within. Imposing a governing council is as far away from democracy as Saddam's fiefdom.