Google Launches Google Gulp (Beta)

image copyright: Google

At Google our mission is to organize the world's information and make it useful and accessible to our users. But any piece of information's usefulness derives, to a depressing degree, from the cognitive ability of the user who's using it. That's why we're pleased to announce Google Gulp (BETA)™ with Auto-Drink™ (LIMITED RELEASE), a line of "smart drinks" designed to maximize your surfing efficiency by making you more intelligent, and less thirsty.

More here

How does Google Gulp work?

Well, to comprehend the long version of this answer, you'd need a PhD (from Stanford, natch). The short version is, our brains process data by sending electrical impulses called neurotransmitters between billions of neurons via axons running between synapses, much the way buses travel between stations, or MP3 files travel between felonious suburban teenagers. The molecular compound that fuels Google Gulp speeds up this process by, among various startling feats of neurochemical legerdemain, limiting the activity of the enzyme monoamine oxidase. You think faster – and feel better.

What's more, through our patented real-time DNA-scanning process, Auto-Drink™, Google Gulp is actually able to "take a picture" of your genetic profile, reconfigure its molecular composition on the fly, and subtly alter your brain's intricate mosaic of axonial patterns in order to facilitate even faster cognitive processing.

More from the Google Gulp FAQ.

Google Gulp's Product Line:

image copyright: Google

Glutamate Grape, Sugar-Free Radical, Beta Carroty, Sero-Tonic Water – try these four great Google Gulp Flavors.

But before you commit yourselves, read Google Gulp's Privacy policy:

From time to time, in order to improve Google Gulp's usefulness for our users, Google Gulp will send packets of data related to your usage of this product from a wireless transmitter embedded in the base of your Google Gulp bottle to the GulpPlex™, a heavily guarded, massively parallel server farm whose location is known only to Eric Schmidt, who carries its GPS coordinates on a 64-bit-encrypted smart card locked in a stainless-steel briefcase handcuffed to his right wrist. No personally identifiable information of any kind related to your consumption of Google Gulp or any other current or future Google Foods product will ever be given, sold, bartered, auctioned off, tossed into a late-night poker pot, or otherwise transferred in any way to any untrustworthy third party, ever, we swear.

Update: Turns out that this was Google's April 1st gag.
Talk of being behind times:). Anyway I had come across this while surfing yesterday and found it wacky enough to post. If like me, dear reader, you are coming across this for the first time, here's wishing you a very, very, belated April Fool's day.

Newspapers' Big Mistake

In a cautionary essay : How Transistor Radios and Web (and Newspapers and Hi-Fi radio) are Alike, Rich Gordon points out the similarity between how newspapers today are confronting the technologies of the Internet and the introduction in the 1950s of the portable transistor radio. When the transistor radio was first made, the U.S. radio manufacturers rejected it for its poor sound quality. Radio manufacturers in the US continued to cater to their existing market for vacuum tube radios. They failed to understand the disruptiveness of this new technology. Transistors appealed to the people because of their portability. The US companies didn't move int thi market allowing the the rise of a Japanese company, Sony.

Gordon points out that there are strong parallels with newspapers and the Internet today:

[. . .]it’s clear that a new generation of consumers prefers web sites to newspapers, because this generation values different things in media. Last year, the Online Publishers Association’s “generational media study” found that young adults 18-34 consider the Internet their first choice for weather, sports scores and stories, national news and breaking news. Older adults (35-54) were less likely to turn to the Internet first for these types of information.

[. . .]

As today’s young adults get older, it seems quite clear that their on-line and print usage habits will remain different than those of their elders. Like the young adults who kept buying Japanese consumer products as they got older, they are likely to keep relying on the Internet for news and information.

[. . .]

Newspapers’ problem in the Internet age is not, mostly, their content. It is, instead, the package (or device) the content comes in that compares unfavorably to the Internet in the eyes of young people.

Hence the imperative for the newspaper industry: engage young adults on the Web.

Gordon feels that the newspaper industry is making the mistake of focusing on the traditional customers who give it the highest profitability -- at the moment. Newspapers are using the Web to serve the same customers they make the greatest profits from in print — classified advertisers. This was the same mistake committed by the US Radio manufacturers in th 50s. Newspapers should instead, he advises, capitalize on the new disruptive technology by using it to serve a new consumer market.

Gordon suggests:

Newspapers that take disruptive technologies seriously should, instead, be creating new interactive products geared to young people. And web sites are only part of the picture.

After all, thinking back to the lessons of rock ‘n’ roll radio, portability may be the most important media attribute for young people. And a new generation of portable devices — cellphones, iPods and PlayStation Portables — might be today’s transistor radios.

Very interesting and compelling argument. Read the full piece here.

Ideal Lover/ Natural/ Charmer/ . . .?

Or in other words, What Is Your Seduction Style?

What's in a Name? Part 2

Do names affect literary careers? No, we are not talking about the names of characters but the names of the writer's themselves. Do writer's names affect the way they are perceived by the reading public?

Roger Scruton writes in The Guardian:

For those addicted to words, the surnames of writers take on the sense of their writings. Wittgenstein, for me, has the sound of a frozen mountaineer, poised on the apex of an argument and remaining there, aloof, uncomforted and alone. Dickens - whose name is proverbial in English - has the sound of an old-fashioned haberdashery: an accumulation of oddments, some still useful, others left behind by fashion or piled in, a heap of unvisited history, like the objects in Mrs Jellaby's cupboard. Lawrence roars like a lion, and yawns like one too; while Melville is not the noise of Captain Ahab stomping his wooden peg on the deck above, but the melancholy sound of a quiet harbour, where the sheets smack in the breeze and a clerk sucks his pen at a counting desk above the quay.

The full piece is available here.
Link via India Uncut.

What's in a Name? Part 1

Sidin Vadukut comes out very strongly against the prevailing current South-Indian nomenclature for males. In The Travails of Single South Indian men of conservative upbringing" he points out how the love lives of south-Indian males are shot to hell as soon as doting parents bestow names such as Blossom Babykutty and Ponnalagusamy on their hapless male offspring.

I have gathered many insights into the endless monotony that is the love life of south Indian men. What I have unearthed is most disheartening. Disheartening because comprehension of these truths will not change our status anytime soon. However there is also cause for joy. We never stood a chance anyway. What loads the dice against virile, gallant, well educated, good looking, sincere mallus and tams? (Kandus were once among us, but Bangalore has changed all that.)

Our futures are shot to hell as soon as our parents bestow upon us names that are anything but alluring. I cannot imagine a more foolproof way of making sure the child remains single till classified advertisements or that maternal uncle in San Francisco thinks otherwise. Name him "Parthasarathy Venkatachalapthy" and his inherent capability to combat celibacy is obliterated before he could even talk. He will grow to be known as Partha. Before he knows, his smart, seductively named northy classmates start calling him Paratha. No woman in their right minds will go anyway near poor Parthasarathy. His investment banking job doesn't help either. His employer loves him though. He has no personal life you see. By this time the Sanjay Singhs and Bobby Khans from his class have small businesses of their own and spend 60% of their lives in discos and pubs. The remaining 40% is spent coochicooing with leather and denim clad muses in their penthouse flats on Nepean Sea Road. Business is safely in the hands of the Mallu manager. After all with a name like Blossom Babykutty he cant use his 30000 salary anywhere. Blossom gave up on society when in school they automatically enrolled him for Cookery Classes. Along with all the girls.

Yes my dear reader, nomenclature is the first nail in a coffin of neglect and hormonal pandemonium. In a kinder world they would just name the poor southern male child and throw him off the balcony. "Yes appa we have named him Goundamani..." THUD. Life would have been less kinder to him anyway.

Read Sidin's complete post here. Very hilarious.

Link via India Uncut.

1709 - The First Blogger: Sir Richard Steele

Posted three times a week + 800 readers + Drank Lots of coffee.

That makes Sir Richard Steele the first blogger.

Ben Hammersley in a talk called Etiquette and the Singularity delivered in Copenhagen, stated that the first blogger was Sir Richard Steele back in 1709. Steele who wanted to circulate his views and opinions did so by writing a letter three times a week. This letter - The Tatler - was distributed to its readers by street urchins.

Steele declared the the objective of The Tatler in his first post:

...wherein I shall from time to time report and consider all matters of what kind soever that shall occur to me, and publish such my advices and reflections every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday in the week for the convenience of the post. I have also resolved to have something which may be of entertainment to the fair sex...

In case you are wondering who Richard Steele is, You'll find some information here. From what I remember of my Literature classes, Richard Steele was among the first of the celeberated essayists. His reputation is based on his posts in The Tatler and The Spectator (which he published along with Joseph Addison). If I remember right, both these guys are credited as precursors of the newspaper and with the beginnings of the modern novel.

That's another notch now on Sir Steele's pen: He is also the precursor of the blogger.

Found three other posts that have blogged about Richard Steele's "blogging." You can read about them here, here, and here.

The Impact of the Candy Dish on Cubicle-Dwellers

A survey reveals that people who stock candy at their desk are more likely to get a bonus than those who didn't keep a candy dish(Maybe they stocked their manager's favourite sweets).

And people who keep sweets are more likely to consider themselves hard-working than those who do not have sweets at their desks.

Me has to find all the people in my office who are handing out free sweets. Anything for free candy.

Sania Shining

Sania's value as a symbol outclasses her iconic status as a player. She stands for what is not just a new generation, but a whole new species. One which could only have emerged at this point in Indian Standard Time. Unburdened by 'I should', it's driven by 'I can'. Post-national, me-first ("I play for myself — and my country"). Bred on choices, risk-taking, mould-breaking, demanding. Carnal in its appetite for success. And no pussyfooting on any of this. On the contrary, ready to be an alley-cat if that's what it takes. Accelerate the world, we want to jump on.

Bachi Karkaria reacts to a comentator's remark made at Wimbledon: "Here's Sania displaying the fighting Indian spirit!"

And here's a post worth reading on Sania Mirza: Why Sania shines

Public Speaking is Like Peeing in Public

Public speaking is not an art, nor a science. It's a question of mind over mutter. Overcoming a biological block. It's like peeing in public. The harder you try, the more Mission Impossible the job becomes. Blather and bladder are inextricably linked. It's a matter of doing what comes naturally. The more self-conscious you are about it, the more you try to force yourself, the more you literally dry up.

Thus spake Jug Suraiya.

No Dress Code in Mumbai Colleges

A students’ group - Samtavadi Chhatrabharti - protested outside the Mumbai University Vice Chancellor's official residence from Wednesday midnight till 5 am Thursday.They were protesting against the VC's decision to enforce a dress code in Mumbai’s colleges.

The VC capitulated.

Good Show by the students.

Read the complete report here.

Nice people, Decent Coffee, and Some Excellent Food: The June Blogmeet

A very good time was had yesterday at the Mumbai Bloggers Blogmeet. 12 bloggers turned up at the Regal Barista. Coffee flowed like . . .umm. . . coffee, conversation sparkled, there was much laughter, and an excellent time was had.

Here's all who attended in alphabetical order (blame it on my last project - the client insisted that all lists be in alpha order):

Amit Varma - India Uncut
Chandrahas Choudhury - Middlestage
Mandar Talvekar - Ink Scrawl
Nandan Pandit - Nandan, blogged!
Rahul Bhatia - Green Channel
Ravikiran Rao - The Examined Life
Saket Vaidya - Psychotic Ramblings of a Mad Man
Sameer Gharat - The Opti Mystic
Seema Ramachandra - Maverick Musings
Sonia Faleiro - Colour of Water
Yazad Jal - AnarCapLib
Zainab Bawa - CityBytes

Rahul turned out to be fellow Harry Potter fan and we both hoped that the sixth book in the series turns out to be good. Self promised to send him a "spoof" of the Half Blood Prince that's doing the email rounds and another Harry Potter fan fiction novel that has the characters as adults in hmm... "adult situations." Sonia uncorked her "collective wisdom" (as she put it) about freelancing and had tips right from which publications to write for to collecting dues from recalcitrant accountants. Yazad called Amit to say that he's reaching the meet in 7 to 9 minutes, walked in, and promptly got into an argument (nay, friendly discussion) with Chandrahas by remarking that he found Arundhati Roy's prose "enchanting." Ravikiran, Nandan, Zainab, and Sameer were at the other end of the (3) tables that we had occupied -- so I couldn't make out what was being said there. Noticed that Ravikiran was holding forth on some topic and the others were rapt in attention.

Much leg pulling also happened. Rahul seemed to be the most favored target though each of the (ex and presently working) Wisden members (Amit and Chandrahas were the others) had their moments too as did Yazad and Saket. Ravikiran dogged Yazad with his camera and I think he managed to click a few pics of the great gourmet (and not gourmand as Yazad clarified) was mixing his coffee (and that's a sight to see). Goats, specifically one huge goat "the size of a pony" were also brought up in conversation, delectable kababs of Noor Mohamedi were extolled and recommended by those few who had sampled them.

The junta finally moved out of Barista after about two and half hours (and after one minor tiff with a waiter over the number of tables we had occupied) and made their way to the Gateway of India. Some serious discussion happened on the agenda for the rest of the evening. Sonia dropped out at this point of time (saying that she had to get to her laptop and blog about this wonderful meet) and the rest moved to the terrace of hotel Strand. There, looking out at the sea, some alcoholic beverages were consumed by some as were Banjara and Harabara kababs. Ravikiran and Yazad held forth on how they got into Libertarianism. Saket and Nandan got into an animated discussion about the role of HR professionals in organizations. Yazad and Rahul said their goodbyes here. Yazad managed to charm the ladies present, Seema and Zainab, away from Amit and they too left with him. Amit consoled himself - "I still have Saket." More animated discussion happened. Dinner, specifically the venue was discussed. Ravikiran and Sameer decided to drop out. The remaining five made their way to Cafe Bagdadi where a notice board admonished among other things:

• Please do not argue with employees of the restaurant.
• Any person misbehaving with the customer or staff shall be handed over to police.

and informed us:

• Food may not be served to drunken persons.

(more here)

Since we all appeared sober, food was promptly brought to us (Admonishment 9: Please do not sit for a long time). Excellent chicken fry masala and chicken fry stew were had with huge, soft, tandoor rotis --- some of the best restaurant fare I have had in ages (just writing about it is making my mouth water again) and very VFM. Finally 5 satiated bloggers footed the bill (Admonishment: Please tender the exact change.), walked out, and at an adjacent shop glugged some soft drinks (Nandan and Self shared the new 7up Ice -- ok drink) and then finally split. It was around 2100 hrs.

Marvelous way to spend a Sunday. If you blog (or plan to) do come for the next blogmeet. We are really nice people to know.

----------------

Amit's account of the blogmeet: Sunday Bloggy Sunday
Sonia's story: Bloggers Eets Are Neat
Rahul's account: The Others at the Blog Meet
Sameer's post: Mumbai Loggers Eet
Saket's report: Mumbai Bloggers’ Meet, June Edition (Read it -- he calls me a "Good natured, jaunty individual.":) )

Ink Scrawl Nugget 4

On Longing:

Sometimes I wish that I was the weather. You'd bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I'd be the talk of the day.
-John Mayer

On Love:

Your love for me has grown over the years, but when you adjust for inflation, it's a net loss.
- From the daily cartoon: The Better Half by Glasbergen

Both appeared in the Times of India on Saturday June 25, 2005. Loved the contrast in the two statements.

Meanwhile, it rained hard in Mumbai and it was definitely the talk of the day.

No Nudity. No Violence. Unspeakable Obscenity

In The Aristocrats famous comedians from Robin Williams to Chris Rock to Phyllis Diller to Jon Stewart tell their versions of a joke involving every imaginable form of sexual perversion in graphic detail: incest, scatology, bestiality and sadism, these funny humans include it all and more.

So what's the joke? Basically, it's this: a guy walks into a talent agent's office and says he has a terrific family act. The act, the guy explains, involves a husband who comes out onstage with his wife and two kids.

What follows is the part that can't be told in this publication, or most others, but it's the point at which each comedian in the film cuts loose in a can-you-top-this exercise in pornographic oratory. Cut to the kicker where the talent agent asks, What's the name of the act? The answer comes: the Aristocrats.

The point of the joke, and the film, may be freedom of expression, or self-censorship, or what happens among professional comedians behind closed doors. But for practical purposes, the joke is so absurdly obscene that the viewer is shocked into hilarity, or deep offense. Or possibly both. The conundrum for those marketing the film is encapsulated in its tagline: "No nudity. No violence. Unspeakable obscenity."

NY Times reports (registration needed to read the report - it's free) that producers of the film are wondering about how to sell this movie about the dirtiest joke ever told?

Well, they don't have to (at least to me). I am already intrigued.
(Yeah, yeah, I have got smut on my mind).

Producers are releasing the documentary in the US without any rating. Had it been submitted for a rating, The Aristocrats would have received a NC-17 rating reserved for films with explicit sexual images. Yet The Aristocrats features nothing more than talking heads.

Will the documentary make it to the Indian shores? I doubt. And even if it does, will it make past the Indian censors?

Going Corny

The average Indian is acquainted with far, far more veggies than any Western man. It could be my imagination but vegetables - when referred to with their Indian names - conjure up a completely different meaning.

Say, cauliflower and peas. To the Western palate that would be a side-dish made edible with salt, pepper and butter. A form of par-boiled punishment.

Alu-gobhi on the other hand, is warm, fragrant and inviting on a chilly winter afternoon in north India. Though it does evoke a 'not again!' feeling when you open your school tiffin box... at times.

Beyond potatos, peas, carrots spinach and aubergine, Western man has alternatives like asparagus, leeks and artichokes. The Indian has bhindi, kaddu, lauki, tindli, turai, methi, karela...

But off late, says Rashmi Bansal, Indians are going corny over firang vegetables, especially American sweet corn.

Monsoon Magic 3: Raigad in the Rains - Part 1

Raigad Photos by Girish Chandwadkar.

Click for: Monsoon Magic 2: It's Raining (Hard) in Mumbai, Monsoon Magic 1: After the Rain . . .

Lalu Repackaged

Railway Minister Lalu Prasad as rustic, illiterate and a caricature of the bumbling politico? Or Lalu Prasad as the shrewd graduate with a law degree? That makeover is in the offing with the Bihar leader hiring a PR firm for a whole new look.

Brand Lalu is set to get a makeover.

Aussie Cricket Team Haunted by Ghosts

It's not only the Bangladeshis and the English who are making life difficult for the Austarlian Cricket team. Team Australia has reportedly been spooked by the 700-year-old ghosts at their ancient hotel in Durham.

"I saw ghosts. I swear I'm telling the truth," Belinda Dennett, Australia's media officer, told The Sun. "Several of the players were uneasy although a lot of them in the morning said they were fine ... but maybe they were just trying to be brave." Shane Watson apparently wasn't one of them. According to the paper, he was so terrified he had to sleep on Brett Lee's floor.

Dennett elaborated on the ghostly goings-on in unnerving detail. "I closed the blind in my room before I went to bed. But when I was woken at 4am by my phone, the blind was up again. I looked out of the window and saw a procession of white people walking past. It was amazing, very scary.

"Then I returned to bed and the blind went up again - and there was someone looking in through the window. I know I wasn't dreaming because I wrote down the message from my phone and the time. Certainly, when I started to tell my story, a lot of them didn't want to know the details."

Looks like everybody in England is doing their bit to wrest the Ashes back from Australia.

Monsoon Magic 2: It's Raining (Hard) in Mumbai

Mumbai, today, is getting this monsoon's first dose of the typical "Mumbai rains." It's raining in the only way it can in Mumbai -- it's pouring.

The road from our office to Saki Naka (in Andheri) is one long, dark, brown river. And all the nicely washed red buses, black and yellow ricks, and blue and green and white cars are neatly arranged on the Andheri-Kurla road. They have been so arranged from very early morning. The vehicles sensing that they are on display and everyone (on the Andheri-Kurla road) is watching them, are moving only inches at a time. From our office windows it's a pretty sight of the road below. And no, I will not think (just now) of how I am to get back home (that's in Ambernath).

Earlier in the day, our office bus inched its way from Ghatkopar to our office in Andheri in a little under two hours. I managed to read quite a bit of Jack Fingleton's Masters of Cricket. Intermittently I pulled my nose out of the book to look out of the steamed up windows and gauge our progress -- we would have moved forward a few meters -- and then back to the book where Fingleton was stressing the virtue of patience on a sticky wicket. Our driver, today (surprisingly) showed that he had loads of that quality. There was hardly any honking and he let the bus drift at the pace dictated by the rains and the traffic. A few brave and impatient souls in the bus decided to descend and walk to the office. One peep at the river that was flowing underneath the bus, was enough to douse all the courage and put them back in their seats. Gradually the bus neared the office. We jumped down, dodged a few rickshaws, side stepped some cars, and then a quick dash into the office building.

Once inside the office it was time to compare notes and get updates from the handful that were already in the office. The Borivili bus to the office had taken a little over two hours (actually nearly three). There was no sign of the Thane bus, yet. "It's reached Powai." someone called out. And then to the pantry for some hot coffee and to watch the rain coming down. One of my colleagues narrated how the driver of the BEST bus she was traveling in maneuvered the bus in the traffic to bring it near a Zunka-Bhakar Kendra. He then called out to the passengers to order tea and whatever else for the bus was not going anywhere for some time to come. Tea was had. The traffic inched forward some more. The driver got back into the bus, covered the distance of five meters and then went back for some more tea. Many passengers did the same before the traffic was ready again to inch forward another few meters. My colleague meanwhile told the driver that there was too much water on the roads and she would get soaked if she alighted at the bus stop (which is some 50 meters from our office) and walked to our office. No problem. The driver, steered the bus from the outside right lane to the inside left and halted the bus bang outside the entrance of the office building. And he even offered to drive it into the building -- "I am in no hurry to get anywhere." he said.

Surprisingly the trains are still up and about. Though if the rain continues in the same fashion, I'll have to spend the night in the office. Well not much of a problem. . . our office keeps us in training with regular "night-outs" on projects.

Meanwhile, people are still trickling in. . . time for some more stories and another cup of hot coffee. Enjoy the monsoon.

Click for: Monsoon Magic 1 - After the Rain.

Indecent Proposal

The Vice-Chancellor of Mumbai University has called in a meeting of all city college principals and is going to propose the enforcement of a dress code in colleges.

Why shouldn't students be allowed to wear clothes of their choice? Mumbai Mirror reports:

Skimpily clad students can provoke incidents like the Marine Drive rape, the Mumbai University feels (never mind if the victim in this case was actually not wearing a skimpy outfit, only a black tee-shirt and blue jeans), so Vice-Chancellor Vijay Khole has called a meeting of all city college principals in the first week of July to discuss "campus attire” for students.“Students are crossing the limits of decency,” Khole told Mumbai Mirror. “After the Marine Drive rape case, we think scantily clothed students could be one of the reasons that such incidents happen,” he said.Khole wants students to dress modestly, though he agrees the meaning of modesty differs from person to person. High on the university's recommendation of a 'modest' dress is the salwar-kameez. Western outfits, especially short skirts, sleeveless outfits, tee-shirts that rise above the navel and trousers that sag below the waistline are a no-no.Khole expects that after the meeting, the prinicipals will convey the university's concern on improper dressing in campuses to students.

Wouldn't a meeting that discusses proposals to sensitize the society towards women be more appropriate? But of course, it is always the woman's fault that she is raped.

Isn't it amazing that a Vice-Chancellor holds such regressive views? And we wonder about the state of education in our colleges.

Ink Scrawl Nugget 3

On Taking the Rough With the Smooth:

It is the opinion of most thoughtful students of life that happiness in this world depends chiefly on the ability to take things as they come. An instance of one who may be said to have perfected this attitude is to be found in the writings of a certain eminent Arabian author who tells of a traveller who, sinking to sleep one afternoon upon a patch of turf containing an acorn, discovered when he woke that the warmth of his body had caused the acorn to germinate and that he was now some sixty feet above the ground in the upper branches of a massive oak. Unable to descend, he faced the situation equably. 'I cannot,' he observed, 'adapt my will to circumstances. I decide to remain here." Which he did.

From Leave it to Psmith by by P.G. Wodehouse [from the omnibus: The world of Psmith]. Wodehouse expounds on how to be happy in this world.
Another Wodehouse nugget: How the Mighty Fall.

technorati tag(s): P.G. Wodehouse, Literature, Humor

Ink Scrawl Nugget 2

How the Mighty Fall:

[. . .]With stealthy steps he crept to the head of the stairs and descended.

One uses the verb 'descend' advisedly, for what is required is some word suggesting instantaneous activity. About Baxter's progress from the second floor to the first there was nothing halting or hesitating. He, so to speak, did it now. Planting his foot firmly on a golf-ball which the Hon. Freddie Threewood, who had been practising putting in the corridor before retiring to bed, had left in his casual fashion just where the steps began, he took the entire staircase in one majestic, volplaning sweep. There were eleven stairs in all separating his landing from the landing below, and the only ones he hit were the third and the tenth. He came to rest with a squattering thud on the lower landing, and for a moment or two the fever of the chase left him.

From Leave it to Psmith by by P.G. Wodehouse [from the omnibus: The world of Psmith]. Wodehouse describes the Efficient Baxter's "Lucifer-like descent" from the landing of the second floor to that of the first.

technorati tag(s): P.G. Wodehouse, Literature, Humor

Monsoon Magic 1: After the Rain . . .

Fresh by Girish Chandwadkar

. . .everything is clean and fresh. Clicked on the climb up towards the Maratha fort - Raigad, just after a heavy shower drenched the Sahyadris.

And announcing a new series of posts (primarily "Photo-posts") on the Monsoon: Monsoon Magic.

Batman Begins . . . Truly

"WE FALL SO THAT WE CAN PICK OURSELVES UP AGAIN"

Before I go into the topic let me admit that Batman has long been one of my favorite super heroes along with Spiderman, Wolverine, and the Phantom. So it was with great anticipation and a little trepidation (who will forget the campy Batman and Robin -- George Clooney as Batman?!!?) that I went to this new installment of the Batman franchise - Batman Begins - from Warner Bros.

And I came away pleasantly surprised. Christopher Nolan (Memento and Insomnia) is a master storyteller in the form of non-linear story telling. Thankfully, while directing a mainstream he remains (partially) true to his roots if I may call them so.

In the movie itself the origins of Batman are traced, why he is who he is and why does he do what he does? So, we have the guilt-ridden Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), trying to understand the criminal mind landing up in a prison in the Far East. From there he is rescued by a mysterious Ninja warrior Ducard (Liam Neeson), a member of the League of
Shadows, led by the mystical and mysterious Ra's Al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). There under Ducard's tutelage Bruce Wayne learns the ancient and powerful skills of the legendary Ninja Warrior. But soon he also learns that the league of shadows exercise justice in the only way they know - with mayhem and destruction. And that the next objective of the League is the destruction of Gotham.

So Bruce leaves the league and embarks on a journey within himself that leads him to his destiny. Ably assisted in this by his faithful butler Alfred (Michael Caine) and Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) and the one honest cop in Gotham Gordon (Gary Oldman) Bruce as Batman begins to exorcise Gotham city of its demons.

But enough of the plot and story, if you enjoy superhero films then my friends go watch this one. The movie is quite simply great -- Nolan successfully creates the dark, menacing atmosphere that is a must for a Batman film. Of the many reasons that the movie works for me is the depiction of Gotham, dark, rotting, violent, and corrupt. Everything in the city is rotten and corrupt - right from the police force to the judges to the businesses.

For once the batcave is precisely what a batcave is supposed to be -- dark, dripping with water, and filled with bats. Don't miss the scene where Bruce comes to terms with himself and his fears inside the batcave as thousands of bats swirl and whirl around him -- easily one of the best scenes in the movie. And thankfully the batmobile is no longer a black formula one car. It is the "tumbler," heavily armored, ferocious, a very fast, juiced up, battle tank. Of course, it comes in black.

The movie is also "contemporary" and has several nice touches. Bruce Wayne outsources the manufacture of the Batman masks to China.

I didn't find anything particularly not to like in the movie. The players are superb and they enact their roles competently. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine enact their parts with aplomb. Katie Holmes and Rutger Hauer are wasted as is Ken Watanabe. Tom Wilkinson, Jonathon Schone play the bad guys with considerable menace. Gary Oldman does a great job (But when does he not do that), and Liam Neeson is great in the first half of the film. Christian Bale is a tremendous improvement over George Clooney's Batman. He is intense, brooding, and menacing as the Batman (unlike Clooney who seemed dressed up for a costume party).

But the film without a shadow of doubt belongs to Christopher Nolan. He again establishes himself as a master of his craft and one of the few directors to watch out for. He is always in control of his material. The sript and screenplay is taut, rarely does the film tedious.

Nolan should be applauded for dumping the gothic and campy styles of the earlier Batman movies and starting afresh. He tells the tale of Batman as it should be told. This movie is much more than an atonement for the sins committed by the earlier movies. With this movie Batman, truly begins.

The word out is that this is the first in a trilogy to be crafted by Nolan (and that all the principals have been signed for the trilogy) if it's true, bring 'em on.

by Amod Paranjape.

------------

Mandar:
I watched Batman Begins last Saturday with my friend -- Amod. A superbly crafted movie - the kind you can expect from Chris Nolan.

I have known Amod for years and he is a fantastic writer once he puts his head to it and hence got him to write this review of Batman Begins (with a few minimal inputs from me -- Sorry, couldn't resist putting in my two bits). I do hope, Amod, someday, decides to start his own blog. The blogosphere will be richer for that.

Amod is a lawyer and runs a succesful practice under the aegis of his firm: PV Associates. He tells his lies (sorry, upholds the law of the land) in the courts of Kalyan, Ulhasnagar, and often the Mumbai High Court (and a hazaar other places like the DRT -whatever it stands for, employment tribunal, etc). The last I heard from him, he has filed a case against me for calling him a liar in a public forum. He is representing both the prosecution and the defense. And trying to convince the judge that he is not a schizophrenic.

technorati tag(s): Batman Begins, movies

Ink Scrawl Aphorism 5

The beauty of the rat race is that it never ends. If you do well enuff, you just get to run with better rats.

From "Weekend Philo" posted by Sagnik Nandy.

Sagnik Nandy's Guide to Writing Matrimony Profiles

Have you ever read the profiles that are put up on matrimony websites? I glanced through many when my brother decided to use a website to find the person who would eventually be his "Mrs. Right."

If you haven't ever read the matrimony profiles, you are missing on some (good) free laughs. Most profiles will tell you that the person can do everything (guy = superman, girl = supergirl).

Sagnik Nandy and his friend, had a similar experience while trawling such websites. Unlike my brother ane me though, they "prepared a standard write-up that combined anything and everything that each of these profiles had to say. "

Guys: Hi. I am Blah Blah and I do Blah Blah. I believe in the simple joys around us (and what might they be). Honesty and sincerity are two virtues that I strongly believe in (you can never go wrong with these). I'm modern and yet I have strong traditional roots (half a dozen people said this and though it makes no sense whatsoever, it seems to be the in-thing). My hobbies are music, movies, reading (aha! the aesthetic side is revealed) and I also like outdoor activities (lest you offend the more adventurous ones). I like to laugh and make others laugh (the sense of humor card is played). I'm looking for a girl who will be an equal partner in every joy that awaits me (clap clap).

Girls: It is very difficult to describe myself in one paragraph (some five hundred women started their profiles with this line without realizing that they are already wasting some of their limited space by putting this line in). I am a simple girl who loves to love and be loved (aaaah! cho fu@@ing chueeet). I have completed my blah blah (educational qualifications). I like to cook (come on you have to say that), sing (yeah! I can entertain you too) and love art work (I will save you valuable money on decoration). I have strong Indian roots and yet I consider myself Westernized (once again this means nothing)
[. . . ]

More in the same vein. And he has promised more on the same topic.

Sagnik Nandy is one blogger you should have in your blogroll. Good writing and extremely funny.

Update: Sagnik keeps his promise. Here's a list of the funniest things that he spotted in these sites

Deja vu 2: Warne is in Trouble Again

Same friend (Deja vu 1). We were watching the England-Australia match when my friend remarked that Warne has managed to stay free of any trouble for quite a long time. I think I said something like wasn't Warne recently in news for sledging or something in an English county match. "That doesn't count," my friend replied, "I am talking of big trouble! Looks like he has finally improved."

Today, the news sites tell me: Shane Warne is in trouble again.

Deja vu: How to Get a Flat in Mumbai for Free

Just yesterday evening, me and a friend were discussing on how costly and difficult it is to get a decent apartment in Mumbai. As it happens during such talks, we came up with a plan to get ourselves a free flat in Mumbai.

And today I find that Mid-Day too has hit upon the same plan.

Killing Higher Education in India

Gurcharan Das, describes with great distress how the attempts of his friend - the president of a prestigious American university to set up a branch campus in India were brought to a nought by mindless red tape.

Two years later I heard this tale of woe. His university's application to the Association of Indian Universities (AIU) for an equivalence certificate went unanswered despite three reminders. Their meeting with the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) resulted in the demand for a huge bribe. Their efforts with the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the Ministry entangled them in miles of red tape. After knocking about like this for a year they concluded that their only hope was to go to Chattisgarh, which allowed private universities. Just as they were about to acquire 25 acres of land and make the Rs 2 crore mandatory deposit came the infamous Supreme Court ban on Chattisgarh universities.

Eventually his friend concluded that India is a hopeless cause and decided to set up a campus in China.

In the same piece, Gurcharan Das also comes down heavily (and with some justification) on the University Grants Commission (UGC):

[. . .] hasn't UGC, in fact, killed off higher education? Only two dozen out of its 200 plus universities offer reasonable teaching and most of these existed prior to the birth of UGC. For 50 years it has promoted rote learning, incompetent faculty, and mediocrity. It has punished original thinking and failed to create an employable graduate. Hence, students have been pushed into a parallel universe of coaching classes, which ironically take their obligation to students far more seriously.

[. . .] Who could be against enlightened regulation of private higher education? We all wish for a body that ensures standards. But if this is how we regulate-with corruption and red tape-isn't it better to give universities autonomy and leave it to parents and students?

Gurcharan Das' grouse against the UGC is very much justified. Incompetent faculty and mediocrity rule the roost in most colleges. The rules laid down by the government and the UGC are such that even the best of colleges are not free from this malaise. UGC controls the grants and colleges have to toe the line. No degree college in Maharashtra (except for minority colleges) has been allowed to recruit new full-time faculty in the past one year. A fully qualified (masters degree + NET/SET certificate) candidate is asked to work on "clock hour basis" (the last I heard, such teachers are paid 70 rupees an hour. By some quirky rule introduced about a year back, each lecture in a degree college lasts for 48 minutes. Yes - not 50 or 45 - but 48. A teacher takes about 20 lectures a week -- often less. That's roughly five thousand rupees a month). If the candidate is lucky, he/she might get Rs. 8000 a month. No person with any modicum of intelligence will take up teaching as a profession. Consequently all that the colleges are getting is chaff. I have seen such "teachers" refusing to teach a text in a literature class because it was never taught to them as students. And I have known of teachers who eagerly await for study guides to hit the market so that they can decide the "topics" to be covered in a class. Unsurprisingly all (except one) of my batchmates, who went into education after completing our masters, have quit teaching and joined the private sector without much regret.

Standards in education are going down (not that they were too high to begin with). After failing to ensure standards, UGC in its wisdom came up with an idea - a new body to assess and rate colleges. UGC set up the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) as an autonomous institution to monitor the standards of all colleges and rate them accordingly. UGC also made a NAAC accreditation compulsory for all colleges. So far so good. NAAC did put the fear in some colleges -- the good colleges tried their best to get a fair assessment but quite a few other colleges have managed to circumvent NAAC effectively.

This is what happens. A week or two before the NAAC committee arrives for assessment, the college is given a fresh coat of paint and spruced up. If needed, equipment for the labs, books for the library, etc are hired or borrowed from other colleges. Teachers are given a crash course on what to say to the NAAC committee. Of course the NAAC committee is put up in the best of hotels and guest houses. Personal equations with UGC members and NAAC members also come into the picture.

More often than not, the assessment and ratings are often funny. How else can you explain that Ruia college is ranked lower than either CHM college in Ulhasnagar or Birla College in Kalyan? And did you know that according to NAAC ratings, Birla college is in the same league as Xavier's or Kelkar? This is not to take away anything from Birla college -- it is doing quite a bit of good work in Kalyan -- but it is not a Xavier's, nor is it a Kelkar. When it started, NAAC was looked upon as a good thing. Sadly colleges now look upon NAAC as yet another fixture in their academic calendar. NAAC no longer inspires the same confidence.

Autonomy might just help -- if the various teachers' unions agree to it. There is so much mediocrity in education that the unions know that most of its members won't survive in a free market without "protection." So they take care of their constituency and fight autonomy tooth and nail. The unions have, as of now, managed to effectively scuttle the movement for autonomy. With all their objections, doomsday scenarios and pleas for protection, the UGC decided that the colleges will have only the autonomy for deciding the syllabi. UGC will decide the course fees, student intake, and infrastructure. Any non-compliance and the management and principal will be prosecuted. After this decision Xavier's and Kelkar, two colleges in Mumbai that were in the forefront with their demands for autonomy, have decided to give autonomy a miss.

No wonder higher education is on a decline. And we don't even allow, with our red tape and corruption, for quality educational institutes to enter our country.

--------------------------

Amit Varma has an excellent post on the same topic: Killing higher education; and free markets.

Too Good Only: A Marketing Shirsashan

Jug Suraiya pointing out that what we are seeing today in India is Gresham's Law extended to just about any product or service you care to name:

Elsewhere in the world, or at least those parts of the world which enjoy the benefits of a market economy, there is a general tendency for goods and services to get better as a consequence of competition. But the Indian market — a unique chimera born by caesarean section out of the reluctant womb of socialism — orders things very differently. Here, instead of first establishing a benchmark of basic quality and customer expectation and then building on that to improve the product in question, we ingeniously turn the process on its head in a marketing shirsashan that confounds conventional consumer norms. We start with a product that is inherently defective — such as scratched, bogus DVDs — and then we build an entire industry around that defect — such as DVD players which are capable of playing inferior DVDs.

Take power cuts. Like the scratched DVD, the power cut is a negative product. It ensures a great deal of customer aggravation. We first create customer disaffection which we then assuage by setting up a whole range of products and services to correct the defect of power cuts — inverters, gen-sets, luxury apartments with 100 per cent power back-up. By this brilliant marketing ploy, what is a negative — a power cut — becomes a positive status symbol: My power back-up is bigger than your power back-up. But what if we had no power cuts to begin with? What if we, somehow, eliminated power cuts? Such a situation is unthinkable by virtue of being too good only. So good only as to drive all those makers of inverters, and gen-sets and luxury apartments with 100 per cent power back-up clean out of the market.

Irawati Karve's Guide to the Mahabharat: Yuganta

Vikram Doctor in the Times of India's Bookmark:

Yuganta has never been out of print since it was published in Marathi in 1969 and English in 1974. An earlier Marathi version won the Sahitya Akademi prize in 1967. It is a starting point for anyone seeking to read the epic.

[. . .]

Two essays stood out for me. The Final Effort looks at two of the most enigmatic characters of the epic—Vidura and Dharma (Yudhishtra). Karve uses her knowledge of Kshatriya customs to suggest (as have others) that the two were father and son, but could not acknowledge each other as such, for fear that Vidura's lower sutta status might imperil Dharma's claim to the throne. It's a twist more daring than any K-serial on TV could make, yet so scholarly is the evidence and Karve's presentation of it, that it seems quite plausible. The second, The Palace of Maya, demonstrates how the epic also tells the story of the historical displacement of the forest world of the tribes by the pastoral world of the Aryans.

Both essays would have been controversial when Karve wrote them in the sixties and, sadly, perhaps they would be even more so now, at a time when the epics have been so politicised. All the more reason to value Yuganta then and the particular mindset that produced it. Karve's training in the West allowed her to use its techniques of scholarly observation and critical analysis, but her roots in Indian culture gave her a passionate identification with the story that few foreign observers would be able to summon.

We ARE The Scene 2 - A Compilation of Indian Rock Music

We ARE The Scene 2 Is OUT!

ennui.BOMB has just released We ARE The Scene 2 a compilation of Indian rock music across all genres and with musicians from all parts of India.

We ARE The Scene 2 features one track each by 12 Indian rock bands:

1. Dead Time Stories : Bhumi (Bangalore)
2. Poems Of Death : Devoid (Bombay)
3. Disjoint : Human Abstract (Bombay)
4. The Samurai Crab : Lucid Recess (Guwahati)
5. Then We Go Out : Messiah (Delhi)
6. Breakaway : Nemesis (Pune)
7. Heal : Rainvan (Bombay)
8. Burn : St. Inel (Bombay)
9. Shadow Of The Sun : The Lemnisk8 (Bombay)
10. Rest In Peace : The Salvation Crusade (Pune)
11. That’s Not What I Want : Tripwire (Bombay)
12. Believe : Vertigo (Pune)

We ARE The Scene 2 is priced at Rs. 100 each.

------------------------

A few words about ennui.BOMB:

ennui.BOMB is an events and artist management company with its prime focus on the Indian rock scene. The primary objective of ennui.BOMB is to support the scene by organizing rock shows, managing upcoming artists and rock bands, and other such activities. ennui.BOMB presently manages three Mumbai-based rock bands—Tripwire, one of the most upcoming punk rock bands in India, Human Abstract, and Rainvan.

ennui.BOMB has, so far, organized a host of successful rock shows in and around Mumbai like Smells Like Punk Spirit—A Punk Tribute To Kurt Cobain, Alternative Nation, and a series of punk rock shows called Punk-O-Rama. ennui.BOMB has worked with the best of talent from the city, including bands like Chaos Theory, Tripwire, Teenage Angst, Channel Rose (Manipur), Bhayanak Maut, Shrapnel (Bangalore), Vishnu (Delhi), and many more. ennui.BOMB shows have got rave reviews from the audience and the media alike, having been covered and featured by DD-Mumbai, Sahara Samay, Indian Express, Mid Day, JAM, Timeout Mumbai, and many more.

ennui.BOMB also independently released a compilation of Indian rock called We ARE The Scene: Vol. One last October. The album features 14 Indian bands across states and across all genres of rock music.

Groundwork has also begun for Stupiditties, a compilation of alternative and punk rock music from India and Nepal. Stupiditties is scheduled to be out by mid-November 2005.

Your support and co-operation is vital in helping ennui.BOMB change the way rock musicians are received by the general public in India.

(For further details and) To order your copy of We ARE The Scene 2, send an email confirming the number of copies, and your personal phone number to ennuidotbomb@yahoo.com OR call 98192 88798.
Snail mail:
ennui.BOMB, C 409, Libra Apartments, Jan Kalyan Nagar, Marve Road, Malad (W), Mumbai – 95.

------------------------

(A disclosure: Rishu Singh, who manages ennui.BOMB along with Aditi Ghosalkar, is a friend and colleague of mine. However, I’am not posting about We ARE The Scene 2 because of that. ennui.BOMB is honestly into some good work in the alternative and punk rock music scene in India. Changing the way rock musicians are received in our country is not easy and I feel ennui.Bomb needs and deserves every bit of support that it can get.
I am just doing my bit.)

Why Cell Phones are so Dangerous for Driving?

We all know that cell phones can lead to driving accidents. But apparently there is still a dispute about exactly why cell phones are unsafe for drivers:
Is it due to manual manipulation of devices in a car (example:dialing a cell phone)?
In this case the invention of hands-free devices or voice activated commands would reduce the accidents. A person using such devices can talk while driving.

Is it due to the distraction of conversing on a cell phone? Is it the act of actively generating responses to a conversation that's distracting (and hence causes accidents)?
This is more serious. Basically it points to a lack of enough attention while doing two tasks (conversing and driving). If this were true, cell phones (and any other device) that needs active engagement should be banned.

Here's a study that might have the answer.

The Humiliation of Being an Editor

One of the things that seniors in our organization do is "Review" the storyboards that are scripted by other writers for various e-learning programs.

Most (if not all) would agree with this:

Grammar, words and spelling are humiliating. I used to be good at this kind of thing in school, but going back to editing reminds me how shaky are the foundations of one’s knowledge. Where do commas go when you use quotation marks? Is ‘none’ singular or plural? Is ‘willpower’ one word or two?

[. . .] I must stop being an editor. Two things happen: You quickly turn into a pedant, while at the same time realising that you knew far less about the English language than you thought you did.

A Letter to Pakistani People

An excerpt from "A letter to the Pakistani people," by Chankaya of vichaar:

We like Pakistani people. And we dont just mean Adnan Sami, Jal or Strings – we mean regular Pakistani folks. In fact, we like most people and cultures. Heck, we tolerate Laloo and he’s totally out of this world. We can understand your accent much easier than his!

[. . .] While we like Pakistani people, we don’t really like the dude who currently fancies himself as your “President”. Given that he was born in India, we feel sort of responsible and guilty in some weird way. If you guys want to send him back we’d probably have to take him (yikes!). Google is hiring in India, and maybe he could work for them. He is something of an expert in searching, we hear.

Anyway, in India, when we get a crappy Prime Minister (happens frequently!), we say “Who the @!#$ elected this moron?”. Friendly, neighbourly suggestion – maybe it’s time you guys started asking yourselves this question too. BTW, one of you cool dudes reading this should tell him that he doesn’t scare us with his see-how-crisp-my-uniform-is routine. Indians are more scared of Mogambo (r.i.p.) than the General in his new clothes.

He (or his “government”) might have told you that even though we might be an “IT superpower”, at heart we are really a rabid bunch of Hindu fanatics out to burn masjids, discriminate against muslim Indians and beat the Pakistan cricket team in every single cricket match. To be fair to the fabled Pakistani PR machine, one of these statements is actually true. But after our recent convincing series win in Pakistan, even that is sort of not true. Witness how we let Pakistan win a game or two in India. Also, we dont really think of ourselves as an “IT superpower” – we would be perfectly happy with “upwardly mobile IT subedaars” right now.

But seriously, only a very few Indians are Hindu fanatics. More people want to watch Nazar in India than want to burn up a mosque (and hardly anyone wants to watch Nazar). And even those who say they are want to burn up a mosque actually just want a decent job (they may or may not know it). Once they get good jobs they mostly end up working hard and watching Bollywood item numbers just like you guys.

Very funny. Do read the entire post.

A Legal Guide for Bloggers

Bloggers are increasingly getting in trouble for what they post. Bloggers, like other publishers, might publish information or opinion that other people don't want published. Pradyuman Maheshwari of Mediaah! decided to shut down his popular blog after the media house that publishes The Times of India sent him a legal notice, asking him to remove 19 posts from his blog as they were "defamatory." Could Maheshwari have avoided getting into trouble if he knew the limits of his rights as a blogger? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has created a guide by compliling a number of FAQs designed to help bloggers understand their rights and, if necessary, defend their freedom.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published the latest version of its free Legal Guide for Bloggers. It is a must read and handy reference for all bloggers (both seasoned and newbies) as the guide covers many thorny legal issues (including defamation and intellectual property).

The guide in a way indicates where this new media journalism is headed.

Please note that the guide is based on the laws in the United States. But wherever you are blogging from, this guide is a good reckoner about what and how you can blog. Do note, that your country might not have the same freedoms and rights as in the USA. So if you are worried about a post for some reason, err on the side of caution.

Are You Tired?

Well, tell these guys why.

There are Only Truths in the Plural, and Never One Truth

You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

Postmodernist		94%
Existentialist		88%
Materialist		81%
Idealist		69%
Romanticist		69%
Modernist		56%
Cultural Creative		56%
Fundamentalist		44%

What is Your World View? (updated)
created with QuizFarm.com

Basically, I am just totally bored . . .

Is Daily Blogging a Good/Bad Idea? -- The Debate

Yesterday I linked to a post by Amy Gahran that pointed out that daily blogging was a bad idea.

Mark VandeWettering of Brainwagon presents an argument against Amy's contention:

I write my blog for me. . .

My philosophy of blogging is simple. Blog if you want to. Blog when you want to. Blog for whatever reason you want to. When someone says “don’t blog if you’re not willing to do X”, then ignore them. Somebody in the long tail will find something interesting in what you have to say. Don’t make it harder for them to find it.

Amy in another post: argues against the "post everything on my mind" approach:

My goal was not to say daily blogging or heavy reliance on the link-only posting format are always counterproductive for every blog.

That said, I honestly do believe that in most cases these practices tend to harm the overall appeal, quality, and usefulness of the blogosphere. Worse, they just tend to make the act of blogging much less fun.

Blogging (or any other writing) for that matter, she points out, needs to be clearly thought out so that it can comunicate its message. Unfortunately,

Clear thinking takes a lot of hard work, practice, and (yes), talent. No, I’m not saying most people are stupid. I’m just saying that clear thinking and good communication don’t come naturally to most people.

Most bloggers she points out just aren’t at this level.

Amy asks the daily blogger to consider this:

Would you want to read everything that you post, every day?

. . .Life’s too short to spend significant time and energy on things that just don’t matter. Why blog daily if your individual postings don’t matter much? Try publishing only when you really have something significant to say.

The answer, I feel, lies in the reasons that you blog for. Is it only for yourself -- the audience is secondary? In such a case a blogger can follow the "post everything on mind" approach. But I guess, the act of "publishing" the post involves an audience and if you want to be a better writer, you should be more discerning in what you post. A blogger should ideally focus more on quality than on quantity and schedule. An honest answer to Amy's question -- Would you want to read everything that you post, every day? -- should help you decide.

Is Daily Blogging a Bad Idea?

. . .So just relax a bit. Listen more, read more, comment on other people’s blogs more. Participate more fully in the public conversation. Take a day off from posting just to get used to the feeling, and don’t apologize for it. Don’t treat blogging as a compulsion. Your audience will thank you for it. Trust me on that.

Amy Gahran thinks a daily posting schedule is counterproductive for most blogs and most bloggers. Here’s why . . .

What do you think?

If You Ever Wondered . . .

Laziness is the worst enemy of humans.
- Jawaharlal Nehru.

Humans should learn to love even their worst enemies.
- Mahatma Gandhi

That should explain "Main Aisa Kyun Hoon."

----------------------------------------

Email sig. of a friend. True about me too.

The Anonymous Blogger

Is it possible to remain anonymous while blogging?

As blogging grows, so does the number of people who face threats of lawsuits or risks of being fired from their jobs for posting candid comments about the workplace

As blogging continues to grow, so does the number of people disciplined or even fired from their jobs for their candid posts.

So how to keep your identity a secret online? An unknown Manhattan waiter behind the blog Waiter Rant (where he posts colorful anecdotes about his customers and co-workers in the eatery where he works) shares some of the rules he follows to stay anonymous:

• Avoid posting comments that would give away your work location.
• Never give/ write about personal details such as job location, names of colleagues or any details that can link you to your blog.
• Never blog at work.
• And in case you happen to become popular, grant interviews only to legitimate media sources.

I have already violated the first three rules, and most (including my bosses) know that I blog (If I ever step out of line on my blog, I am toast). And I am too unknown to grant any interviews.

The Making of a Good Blog

The Internet contains nearly 3 million active blogs. With so many blogs, how does one become popular?

William Kraska lists the qualities that will distinguish a good blog from the others:

specificity and passion -- have a single focus about a topic you really enjoy. Importantly, put a little of yourself into it.

Reader comments -- will help a blog be more than just a blogger "writing into space." Of course, comments help you know if your writing is working, and what you need to strengthen in your writing (Click for the blog comments debate).

Patience -- it takes time, sometimes months and years, to build a following for your blog. Be patient and committed.

Picking Cherries?

What lasts for roughly a day of cricket takes over 75 days to create.

Rahul Bhatia visits the Sanspareils Greenlands (SG) factory and describes how a lump of cork rubber is transformed into a shiny red cricket ball -- Excellent reading.

Blogs and Truth

Newspaper editors publish a story once they think it is true. Bloggers publish a story to see if it is true.
-Jacob Weissberg of Slate

Weissberg implies that bloggers don't care about truth. Do you agree?

Ink Scrawl Aphorism 4

Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
-Walter Lippmann

From "Quotable Quotes" in Reader's Digest.

Random, Whimsical Pictures: Manga

Today, though, many associate Manga with Japanese comics, its has its origins in 19th Century Japanese art. Today (as a style in comics) it is highly influential and popular in the west.

The Times of India makes a note of the Manga trend:

[In Manga] rather than finding a bridge between separate moments, the reader must assemble a single moment using scattered fragments. Dozens of images can be devoted to portraying slow cinematic movements. This phenomenon echoes a larger theme of oriental thought, that of wandering. Whilst in traditional Western art the emphasis is on reaching goals, the Eastern model encourages a cyclical and labyrinthian approach. Manga is an heir to such tradition, where being there is more important than getting there.

Almost everyone in Europe and America is engrossed in their Mangas. It is a new fashion standard and is consumed by the young and the trendy.

Manga is constantly reinventing itself. Graphic novels, currently a rage in the west, have inspired Manga producers to write more contemporary urban tales like autobiographical accounts, monographs etc.

Hopefully, one day, Manga will percolate down to India too.

Vaastu to the Rescue

This is how the BJP weathered its latest crisis:

Vaastu experts scanned the sprawling 11, Ashoka Road headquarters of the party and found the problem in its main hall where crucial meetings of the party as also its daily briefings are held, sources said.

They found that at all party meetings, particularly the controversial ones, the seating arrangements in the hall were such that senior leaders sat facing the south while office bearers sat facing the north which they felt was a "conflicting position".

Hence, at yesterday's crucial meeting of the BJP Parliamentary Board, office-bearers and Chief Ministers of BJP-ruled States called to discuss Advani's resignation, the senior leaders were made to sit facing the East while the office bearers were made to sit facing the North.

Maybe I should get a Vaastu expert to suggest the direction in which my workstation in office should face.

Is the Dada back?

After being pilloried for months and being the butt of jokes, Sourav Ganguly is back in the news for all the right reasons. Ganguly's 142 off 125 balls for Glamorgan signals a return to form.

Hopefully.

Sollywood (Party) Animals

Anil Thakraney talks to Kishen "All he’s ever done in life, is party" Mulchandani for Sunday Mid-day.

You acted in Page 3… how close was it to real life?
Totally true! Everything you saw in the movie happens everyday in my life.

You mean industrialists have sex with children?
That’s only a metaphor for teenagers! And it happens in every society, even down in the slums.

Sex with teens, even if by consent, is a crime. Shouldn’t you report this, as a responsible citizen?
Maybe all that’s being done with consent! How do I know if the parents aren’t soliciting it? If it’s a crime, that’s for their elders to understand, why should I put my nose into it? I am not the Taliban to sit here and regulate the moralities of people! I am there to have fun, that’s all. Tomorrow, if I see a couple kissing and smooching, and the man’s trying to shove and rub, why should I butt in?

But we are talking underage sex here.
(Agitated) Arre baba, how do you know they are not lured by money? How do you know the child is not inclined towards it? The 12-year-olds are ready to do anything these days! When you are young, and your uncles and aunties make you sit on their lap, and keep rubbing you, how can you tell they have sex on their minds or not? You might think they love the child.

What's Sollywood?
If you have finished throwing up, read the rest here.

Blog Meets

The Hindu reports on some bloggers who arrange meets to put faces to the blog URLs.

For some bloggers, the meets have become an essential part of their monthly 'to-do' lists. While most meets are suddenly thought of and hastily arranged, bloggers pay incredible attention to post info about such meets on their blogs or at least draw attention to other sites where the information can be gleaned. . .

Every big town and city in India has its own round of bloggers meets, its quota of webmasters who are willing to take their virtual persona into a coffee shop, or up a hill.

Meanwhile watch this space for the upcoming Mumbai bloggers meet.

And here's an account of one such meet that I attended.

Blog Comments Debate

“For all sad words of pen, tongue or keyboard, the saddest are these: 0 comments.”
- The Anonymous Blogger

The blog comments debate continues.

Blogfrogging

Blogsnob, Blogsob, Blogslob, Blogslog, Bloglog, Blogclog, Blogflog, Blogfog/Blogfag, Blogfrog, Bloghog, Blogdog, Blogjog, Blogcog, Blogrob, Bloghobnob, Blogmob.

What you need is a dictionary.

Link via a blogslogging Amit Varma.

Ink Scrawl Aphorism 3

If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner; you have learned how to live.
-- Lin Yutang.

Pity, I seem to have forgotten how to do that.

From the Information Age Into the Connection Age

Amy Gahran contends that we seem to have slipped into a new era in the past few years: The Information Age has started evolving into the Connection Age. . .

Gahran points out that three of the emerging and popular technologies today -- Wikis, Podcasts and Feeds, have a common thread: Connection.

Wikis, she feels, mirror human minds and communities. Wikis show (or allow to build) relationships between ideas/information, thus allowing new ideas and understanding to evolve from combinations of existing ones. The real action in a Wiki is not information itself, but making connections between information.

Feeds, Gahran points out, are about interconnected interests. You subscribe to a blog's feed because you are interested in what the author of the blog has to say. Feeds she says allow direct, immediate connections in real time between people who publish online and their audiences.

Podcasts, Gahran says, are about a more human kind of connection -- the sound of the human voice, and other kinds of human expression through sound. Podcasts allow us to "see sounds" and that provide us with rich information and context.

Gahran feels that we are moving into an era where increasingly tools and ideas that help us make connections will matter more than those which simply manage information.

Read her complete post: Connection Age: Transcending the Information Age.

On Mumbai's local Trains

[You] manage to get four toes of either feet inside, and begin to shiver.

Four toes. Hallelujah. You discover muscles you didn't know existed, as each begins to scream in alphabetical order -- biceps, pectorals, triceps. Then, Churchgate. 55 minutes after you first hung on for dear life. You can barely stand. But you have arrived. And in once piece too. All around you, in front and behind, people disembark. Hundreds. All pouring out like termites from rotting wood.

. . .I'm safe at the office, for today.

Tomorrow, is another train.

Strategy by Design

Organizations need to take design thinking seriously. We need to spend more time making people conscious of design thinking -- not because design is wondrous or magical, but simply because by focusing on it, we'll make it better. And that's an imperative for any business, because design thinking is indisputably a catalyst for innovation productivity. That is, it can increase the rate at which you generate good ideas and bring them to market. Where you innovate, how you innovate, and what you innovate are design problems. When you bring design thinking into that strategic discussion, you join a powerful tool with the purpose of the entire endeavor, which is to grow.

In order to do a better job of developing, communicating, and pursuing a strategy, the head of Ideo says, you need to learn to think like a designer.

In the Masters of Design issue of FastCompany, he enumerates his five-point plan for how to make the leap:
1. Hit the streets
2. Recruit T-shaped people
3. Build to think
4. The prototype tells the story
5. Design is never done

The Road

The Road by Girish Chandwadkar

Girish clicked this photograph on the way to Elephant's Head point in Mahabaleshwar.

That was in October last year. Both of us had just completed (different) long term projects and the office (very kindly) allowed us some leave. Girish suggested Mahabaleshwar -- nice scenery, he said (he had just got himself a new digital camera). I just wanted a place where I could be away from a computer for a week. We checked into a small budget hotel, preferring to spend the money on sightseeing and food.

We had taken a taxi to the Elephant's Head the day earlier. However Girish couldn't take any photographs of the sunset then as his camera's battery was on low (Elephant's Head is adjacent to Sunset point). He wanted to go again the next day. For some reason, we decided to walk to Elephant's head. That was about 4 Km from our hotel. We started around 4.00 PM, giving ourselves enough time to reach in time for the sunset. Before leaving the hotel, we informed the hotel manager that we were going for a walk.

Girish clicked this photograph just before the road to Elephant Head moves into a dense forest (well, at least dense enough for us city types).

We reached Elephant's Head well in time for a horse ride (not for me, a horse will simply not move if i decide to ride it) and the sunset. Girish even found some time to talk to the owner of the horses, find out about his family, the amount he earned in a day, what he did in the off-season, etc.

After the sunset we turned back for the hotel when we realized that we were in a spot of bother.
Our troubles were chiefly:

1. The road back was mostly uphill.
2. It was dark. We didn't have a torch (flashlight).
3. We were the only two who were walking back.
4. We had to walk through a jungle when its inhabitants would be becoming active.

The last thought struck us but we weren't much bothered by it. "There shouldn't be anything more dangerous than snakes," Girish said in an effort to be nonchalant. We started walking back, with a sliver of a moon giving us just enough light for us to know that we were on the right road.

Ten minutes into the jungle, the horse-ride vendor trotted upto us. "Are you two walking back?" he asked incredulously. We nodded. He asked us to ride his horses. But he had only one to spare. We refused and said we'll walk back. "Walk fast and make a lot of noise. Sing loudly." he advised, before trotting away. "Why sing?" I asked Girish. "Don't know. But let's talk loudly anyway." He replied.

We finally reached the hotel (without losing our way) around 8.30.

The hotel manger was waiting for us at the reception.
"Thank God, you're back. Where did you go for your walk?" he asked. "Elephant's Head." we replied.
"#$$@*!!! I thought you had gone to Venna Lake (about a km from our hotel). Had you told me you were walking to Elephant Head, I wouldn't have allowed you to go."
"Why is that?" we asked.
"There are snakes in that jungle. And boars. And leopards. They move about a lot in the night."
"Well, we didn't see any." we said dismissively.
"I can see that or you wouldn't have been here."

We went quietly up to our room.