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Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired. - Jules Renard 

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Good Axe Commercial

http://twelvefifteen.com/media/axecommercial.php

| posted by Ramki @ 7:06 PM

Thursday, May 26, 2005

POST your Secrets

I had heard about this blog on NPR too.
http://postsecret.blogspot.com

| posted by Rajan @ 10:07 PM

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Can the wall split the web?

Communist China has watched the number of internet users rise to more than 100 million and the number growing exponentially every year. Eventhough Internet access inside China is restricted and all ISPs are controlled by the Communist government, people seem to find their way to reach for information/provide information from within through proxy servers and user-forums. Here is one of the many recent articles I read about the mighty Internet taking on the Dragon controlling it. Let's see if Chinese Police are able to secure their great wall inspite of the small and steady holes being made by the hackers within!

| posted by Ramki @ 4:58 AM

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

HIV in India

· About 5.1 million people are infected with HIV in India, second only to South Africa

· Infected people make up less than 1% of population

· The first case of HIV in India was diagnosed among sex workers in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, in 1986

· Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Manipur states account for three-quarters of the country's estimated HIV cases

· One sixth of all new Aids cases in the world occur in India, 30% of which are women

· Last year the World Bank warned that India could have 5m new HIV infections every year within 30 years if condom use does not increase

· Britain's international development department estimates that two adults become infected with HIV every minute in India

The CIA predicts 25 million Indians could be infected by 2010.

The reason, say experts, is a historic indifference to public health - India spends less than 20 cents (11p) a head on HIV prevention and treatment, a third of the spending in Thailand and a ninth of that in Uganda - and weak political commitment to combating Aids. Although the new government, controlled by Sonia Gandhi of the Congress party, has increased public health spending by 25% and sports stars such as the cricketer Rahul Dravid are beginning to front condom campaigns, many worry that the country has passed a tipping point in infection rates.

Last year Richard Feachem, head of the UN-backed Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria, said he believed official statistics underestimated the prevalence of HIV. "The Indian epidemic is on an African trajectory," he said. "Today we are not making a difference. The virus is winning."

The losers appear to be the country's youth. Children are first forced to leave school to care for sick parents. Once orphaned they are then consigned to work to replace their parents' income.

Sixteen-year-old Anjali Kolukapalla, whose mother, Rani, died last year of Aids, wakes up at four in the morning to sweep the streets of Vijayawada so that her nine-year-old sister, Kumari, can go to school. She earns 1,800 rupees a month (£22) and she and her sister cook, eat and sleep in one room. "There is nobody to look after us. That is why I have to work."

The spread of HIV also threatens to shake two of India's most resilient institutions: arranged marriage and the dowry. Abandoned by their extended families, orphans find themselves without the money or social network to marry. The stain of Aids also marks them out as a new class of untouchables.

 .... Complete Guardian Article on Indian AIDS orphans

"The official statistics show India in second place and South Africa in first place," said Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.  "The official statistics are wrong. India is in first place," Feachem said. [ more ]

(Commenting on Feacham's statistics in an IHT article )
"This is technically incorrect and misleading," Quraishi said, stressing that the Indian government did not sanction the range in possible figures cited by Feachem.

"According to our figures, 0.9 percent of our adult population is currently infected, compared to 23 percent in South Africa," Quraishi added. "The gravity is not the same, and highlighting this will just make people in India complacent."

Feacham also wrote in a letter to the National AIDS Control Organization  "We know from a number of other countries that the epidemic can grow from a fraction of 1 percent of the population to 10 or even 20 percent within a decade,"

| posted by Rajan @ 10:05 PM


Brazil spurns US terms for Aids help

Brazil yesterday became the first country to take a public stand against the Bush administration's massive Aids programme which is seen by many as seeking increasingly to press its anti-abortion, pro-abstinence sexual agenda on poorer countries.

Campaigners applauded Brazil's rejection of $40m for its Aids programmes because it refuses to agree to a declaration condemning prostitution.

The government and many Aids organisations believe such a declaration would be a serious barrier to helping sex workers protect themselves and their clients from infection. [ more ]


| posted by Rajan @ 9:41 PM


A Hairy Tale

From South Asia to East London, human hair is a little known but highly lucrative trade: Hair Trade Route.  

Recycled as expensive wigs for the West, or sold for use as raw material  for the chemical industry, India's human hair trade has grown into a multi million-dollar industry.  
Four types of hair are harvested in India: Temple hair, Village hair, Sikh hair and Barber hair.


Hair is used for a multitude of purposes. Men's Temple hair is used for jacket linings, cosmetic brushes, and is also interwoven with other fabrics to make suits. Lower quality Barber hair is converted into amino acids, which in turn are used in food and medicine.(Via J-walkblog)

| posted by Ramki @ 6:16 PM

Sunday, May 22, 2005

'Sardar' Hacker deletes own hard drive.

"You're going down man", finally the hacker declared success. "I can see your E: drive disappearing", he gloated, "D: is down 45 percent!" he cried, before disappearing into the ether.

A chat channel spat ended when a wannabe hacker was duped into deleting his own hard drive. The 26 year-old German claimed he was the baddest hacker in town and threatened to attack a moderator on #stopHipHop's RC Channel because he thought he'd been thrown out. He demanded the moderator cough up his IP address and prepare to be hacked.

The moderator sent back a bunch of numbers and there then followed a period in which the moderator assumes all manner of hack tools were unleashed at the IP address. English translation of the entire chat is here. It is very hilarious! :-)

| posted by Ramki @ 5:47 PM

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Vision 2010: Beyond the mobile frontier

Watch NTT-Docomo's Vision-2010 video. Corporates do have a long term vision. Here is one that has clearly spelt it out!
The video is excellent and with the progress in wireless technology, all these can definitely happen by 2010!

Awesome promotional videos for BMW cars. Each of these videos is for 6 minutes and can easily match any hollywood movie climax. Complemented with amazing background scores, these videos are toooooo good!
1.- Ambush (Clive Owen,John Frankenheimer) 13480KB
2.- Chosen (Clive Owen) 13669KB
3.- Star (Clive Owen,Guy Ritchie) 15344KB
4 - Powder Keg (Clive Owen,Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu) 18168KB
5 - Hostage (Clive Owen) 20238KB
6 - Ticker (Clive Owen,Joe Carnahan) 20106KB

For the insatiables, here is another collection of technology videos!

| posted by Ramki @ 12:10 AM

Friday, May 20, 2005

Mumbai Navigator

"IIT Bombay has launched "Mumbai Navigator" for people to find out how to reach from one place to another. Just visit the site and  find out how many types of routes are available from your present location  to the desired destination, how much time each route will take. It also gives information like how to take one mode of transport first, where to get down, the distance one needs to cover on foot and where, which mode of transport to take next and where to get down again."
P.S: I guess the site is currently taken off. However you can check it out in google cache.

| posted by Ramki @ 3:05 PM


Bondoogle

With Greasy monkey extension of firefox, people are really thinking creatively. Checkout Bondoogle.
If you are using firefox and have greasymonkey extension installed, you can also try out April Foogle!
(Via Krazydad)

| posted by Ramki @ 2:45 PM


Gaping Maw

A gallery of open-mouthed animals - In other words photos of animals yawning (read lazy-pranis).
Also checkout satellite photos of abandoned stadiums.
(Via Incoming Signals)

| posted by Ramki @ 2:31 PM


Star wars : It seems free downloads you have.

What do you get when add the biggest movie release of the year to the tale of unauthorized file sharing? Apparently the biggest file sharing story of the year. News outlets are agog that someone "leaked" the studio print of the latest Star Wars movie, which a few thousand people are now sharing online. This is bad ostensibly for the same reasons the entertainment industry frowns on all unauthorized sharing and piracy: it's taking money out of the studio's coffers. But really, does anyone think that the die-hard Star Wars geeks who are downloading the film will not go see it in theaters? Or buy more stuff like DVDs, video games, and the occasional Chewbacca novelty suit? If anything, free distribution to a just handful of avid fans will only add to the positive buzz and already impressive revenues. Color us conspiracy theorists, but we wouldn't be surprised if the "leak" was intentionally done for this purpose. It makes perfect sense. The bootlegged movie is reaching only a limited audience that will go see it anyway, it's already getting good reviews, and the "piracy" story is getting the studio tons of free publicity. Maybe this is a case where Hollywood has actually caught on to the  value of free content. Nah, that'll never happen.   
(Via Techdirt)     

| posted by Ramki @ 2:20 PM


iPod lure to cut down junk food


Healthy eating school pupils in Glasgow are to be rewarded with iPods and Xbox consoles for ditching junk food.

Glasgow City Council is offering the electronic incentives to about 30,000 children in 29 secondary schools.

The pupils are given swipecards and can claim various prizes depending on the number of points they gain for eating "sensibly" on school premises.

A council spokeswoman said youngsters "wouldn't turn up their noses at winning an iPod for eating nice food".

They can redeem their points for a selection of goods - from cinema tickets and book tokens to top-of-the-range iPods and Xbox games consoles - at the end of the term. [more]



| posted by Rajan @ 9:03 AM

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Pogue on Longhorn

NYT David Pogue's Review of Longhorn :

Yesterday, Microsoft showed me a very, very early version of the next version of Windows (code-name: Longhorn). It's not even in its first beta-test version, so a lot could change, and the final version won't be available until the 2006 holiday season (that's right, it's a year and a half away).

Even so, the version I saw is far ahead of the version that Microsoft demonstrated only a couple of weeks ago at the WinHEC conference. So considering that, oh, around 200 million people use Windows, I thought I'd share my impressions.

First of all, Microsoft has had quite a swig of the Apple Kool-Aid; product manager Greg Sullivan must have used the word "elegant" for the new cosmetic Windows design (which is indeed beautiful) about five times.

Apple-esque features include the new system-wide search box at the upper-right corner of every desktop window and atop the Control Panel window, much like the Spotlight search box that debuted in Mac OS X Tiger a couple of weeks ago. Similarly, the three control buttons at the top of each window light up as the cursor passes over them, and windows shrink away with an animation when minimized, just as in Mac OS X.

On the other hand, many of the new features represent Microsoft's own creative thinking, especially when it comes to everyday folder windows. Window title bars are translucent, which Microsoft says makes it easier to notice that one window is overlapping another. And you can make icons in a window larger or smaller in real time, with no loss of clarity, by turning your mouse's scroll wheel while pressing the Ctrl key.

In one of the new icon views, folder icons appear to be tipped 90 degrees. In real life, of course, such folders would dump out everything inside. But in this experimental view, you can see some of the documents inside peeking out: thumbnails of the first pages of the actual documents inside!

The idea of "stacks" has been kicking around system-software seminars for years, but it looks like Longhorn will bring them to the masses. It's another icon view, in which your documents look like they're piled up in literal piles of paper; the taller the stack, the more stuff is in there.

Thanks to a radically different set of sorting criteria, you can define how your stuff is sorted into stacks: chronologically, by author, by keyword, and so on. (Note to the technical: In other words, Windows is about to go metadata-crazy. You can apply keywords to your documents right in a folder window, using a collapsible list of keywords at the left side. And you can edit other kinds of metadata — date, author, keyword, music genre, and so on — in a panel at the bottom of the window.)

Yet another change in desktop windows is the "list." It's an area that you can summon at the right side of the window; any icons you drag there turn into shortcuts, no matter where they originated (on the Internet, on a network server, on your own hard drive, and so on). You can build as many lists as you want. They're handy, they're flexible, and you can e-mail one to other people so they can play with the same set of documents and folders you have.

The only downside to all this desktop-window magic is that, with so many features crammed into so little space, mastering all of these controls may become overwhelming. At one point during the demonstration, a window full of documents had two stacked menu bars at the top, a panel at the left side showing "virtual folders" (like Keywords and Recent), a panel across the bottom for editing those file details, and a panel down the right side showing lists. I had to squint just to find the actual document icons, huddled in a little square in the middle of the window!

(Of course, complexity has never been an impediment to Windows's success in corporations, where Microsoft's bread is buttered; if anything, complexity means job security for the very people who buy 500 copies of Windows at a time. Furthermore, it's important to remember that, with 19 months to go before the next Windows is released, Microsoft has a heck of a long time to simplify and straighten out all of these feature ideas.)

Microsoft has also elegant-ized the Start menu, which, with the weirdly overlapping All Programs menu in XP, desperately needed a rethink. Now it's only two columns — the same two you have in Windows XP — but you can expand and collapse folders in the left-side list with just a click, to save space and assist with organization.

When you click the All Programs button in Longhorn, you replace the left-side column with a scrolling list of your programs. There's a little Spotlight-ish search box at the bottom, too, so you can jump to a program whose name you know with a couple of keystrokes. These are very nice changes.

Now, I've just focused here on the on-the-screen differences; Longhorn will also include a huge number of deeper-seated architectural features — self-healing features, a new driver system, and so on — that Microsoft says will drastically improve Windows's security and reliability. "It just works," says one of the slides in Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation.

Of course, Microsoft says this kind of thing EVERY time it releases a new version of Windows (especially "It just works"). Here's hoping that in the next 19 months, the company puts its coding where its mouth is.

| posted by Rajan @ 3:59 PM


Language learning declines after second year of life

Source:  news @ Nature

Excerpt :
Our ability to learn language is already on the wane by our third year of life, according to a study of profoundly deaf children given cochlear implants to restore some of their hearing.


The research supports the widely held belief that there is a 'sensitive period' for language learning, during which the capacity to acquire vocabulary and grammar is heightened. "But I was surprised we found evidence that this sensitive period occurs so early in life," says Mario Svirsky, an acoustic engineer from the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, who led the study.

Svirsky and his colleague Rachael Frush Holt looked at 96 children who had received implants during their first four years of life. The implants, which are surgically inserted in the ear, convert sound into electrical signals that the brain can interpret, allowing many deaf people to hear.

The team then tested the children's language development and speech comprehension every few months for several years after the procedure.

Svirsky found that the rate of language learning was greatest for those given implants before they turned two. This was measured with the widely used Reynell Developmental Language Scales, which test a child's vocabulary and understanding of grammar. Children given implants at three or four years of age acquired language skills more slowly, although Svirsky stresses that these children still benefited from the devices.

Implantation before the age of two is still relatively rare, but "this study is convincing evidence that implantation in the first two years of life is more beneficial", Svirsky says. He presented his results on 16 May at the Acoustical Society of America conference in Vancouver, Canada.

| posted by Rajan @ 1:30 PM

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

Nice game: Vending machine

(Thanks Lad)

| posted by Ramki @ 12:15 AM

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Browsershots

Submit a URL and see how it looks in different browsers: Browsershots. I don't know why someone might want it though!

| posted by Ramki @ 11:51 PM


Get paid to blog

Poor graduate students who have lot of time to blog can now think of becoming rich!

| posted by Ramki @ 11:49 PM


A parody Blog: Marissa(BETA)

"Hi, my name's Marissa. I'm head of consumer web products for a company you may have heard of. There's absolutely nothing wrong with our products, even though they're perpetually in beta, the user experience is perfect I tell you, perfect. Or it will be as soon as those webmaster thingies modify the web for us. Oh yeh, and this blog's a parody of me!"

| posted by Ramki @ 2:56 AM

Monday, May 16, 2005

Give me back my Bangalore !

A very funny article about changing lifestyles in Bangalore. I have first hand experienced the same things as mentioned in the article. I have felt like a villager who has wandered into a mall, surprised at the advances and scared of appearing uncouth. There is a corner store near my house where you get everything from Tropicana, RedBull to salsa for your nachos !! However I still miss my Bangalore, yes it has now been completely packaged and sold to crass commercialism. But it would be stupid of me to expect DSL on one hand and no pseudo accents on the other ! This is the flip side of commercialism I will have to come to terms with.

http://littleindia.com/may2005/KeepingUpWithKapoors.htm

Is it the same deal with Chennai and Hyd ?

Comments welcome.

| posted by HollaMan @ 9:30 PM


University Goes After Anonymous Bloggers Because They Don't Like Them

Apparently there are some fairly obnoxious anonymous bloggers at St. Lawrence University, who have been criticizing and mocking students, faculty and staff at the university. It's clear that some administrators are pretty pissed off about the whole thing (as are plenty of students). However, just because you don't like something doesn't mean you can go after them legally. However, the university appears to be doing exactly that, filing a lawsuit to unmask the anonymous bloggers. Of course, since there's nothing illegal about being anonymous, they had to come up with another reason. So, they came up with some bizarre charges, saying that the students violated copyrights by taking some photos off the school's website, altering them, and posting them to the blog -- for which they could probably claim it was protected parody use. However, even the school admits they don't really care about the copyright issues, they just want to find out who the people are, so they can take other action against them. This certainly seems like a pretty serious misuse of a copyright violation claim. Anyway, it looks like the school may be closing in on the students as the court ordered Google to give up their IP addresses (which they did) -- but so far Time Warner Cable has resisted in turning over whose accounts are associated with those IP addresses. Obviously, the bloggers involved are going a bit over the top in what they're posting, but it doesn't sound like they've done anything really illegal -- just annoying.

(Via Techdirt)

| posted by Ramki @ 2:44 PM

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Matrix not too far away

I got this forwarded mail from a friend of mine... But there is indeed some truth in it. The ALICEbot is really cool. Try chatting with it.

No doubt you have seen Matrix movie. What powered those machines?



Step 1 -------------------- Power source

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&amp;click_id=31&amp;art_id=qw111596760144B215
&quot;A Japanese research team has developed a fuel cell that
&nbsp;&nbsp;runs on blood without using toxic substances...&quot;



Step 2 -------------------- Self replication

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/Cornell-University-Scientists-Develop-Self-Replicating-Robot-132007C8P73O.xhtml
Cornell University Scientists Develop Self-Replicating Robot



Step 3 -------------------- Brain

http://www.cyc.com/
Cyc is set to be released on Internet soon...
Cyc is supposed to have common sense and retrieve info from Internet



Step 4 -------------------- Language interaction

http://www.alicebot.org/
ALICE (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity)



Step 5 -------------------- Matrix

When artificial brain CYC, finds out about self-replication
and uses ALICE to fool humans to provide power.

| posted by Ramki @ 3:07 PM


More funny videos

Scare Tactics ; Store wars; Mazda-B series.

NSFW :Lord of the Raised Sword: LOTR for grown ups! Spermo from the swolland ballz have been sent on a crucial mission in the land of Cuntia. :-)

| posted by Ramki @ 3:14 AM

Saturday, May 14, 2005

News from Iraq

I am not sure if the situation in Iraq for both the population and the soldiers fighting there is getting any better, so why not try to find a news reporter covering the news from within the country itself. Now is it safe in Iraq?
[Via attu Caution : Mildly NSFW Website. Video is safe and damn funny]

| posted by Ramki @ 5:09 AM

Friday, May 13, 2005

Web @ work

" The 2005 Web@Work survey suggests that surfing the web may be more addictive than coffee. Fifty-two per cent of employees surveyed who use the internet at work for personal reasons stated that they would rather give up their morning java than Internet access at work, while only 44 per cent would give up their internet access for coffee. Furthermore, Internet usage at work is increasing -- 93 per cent of all respondents said they spend at least some time accessing the Internet at work. This is up from 86 per cent in 2004, as reported in the 2004 Web@Work survey. " [ article ]

Its suprising that last year 14% of the employees do not spend anytime on the internet. I hope the sample space had people who all have access to the net. Do you have an idea how many hours you spend browsing personal pages at work ? Would you agree with the 3.5 hrs/week (45 mins a day) avg resulting from the survey of the emplyees or 6 hrs/week estimated by IT employers.

| posted by Rajan @ 8:27 AM

Thursday, May 12, 2005

Dutch academics declare research free for all!

"Scientists from all major Dutch universities officially launched a website on Tuesday where all their research material can be accessed for free. Interested parties can get hold of a total of 47,000 digital documents from 16 institutions the Digital Academic Repositories. No other nation in the world offers such easy access to its complete academic research output in digital form, the researchers claim. Obviously, commercial publishers are not amused."
(From theregister)

| posted by Ramki @ 1:57 PM

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Funny videos

If Bush were black ....
Loser
Don't touch my car bitch!

| posted by Ramki @ 5:06 PM


Vegetative Feedback


"Earth's climate is all about relationships, and this study shows that ground cover plays a significant part in determining changes in climate extremes," said Diffenbaugh, who is an assistant professor of earth and atmospheric sciences in Purdue's College of Science. "We are accustomed to hearing that greenhouse gases affect climate, but they are not the only factor we should consider. Our climate models also must incorporate the effect of vegetation if they are to capture the full scope of reality."  [article]

"Interpretations of this research could be challenged because it is an initial idealized experiment, not a forecast," Diffenbaugh said. "For example, I used an idealized vegetation cover for the region, and I have left out several important processes, such as the role of human land use and the role of changes in the way nutrients cycle from the earth into living things and back again."

Aside : Modelling the environment and the feedback due to vegetation in an area is awesome.

| posted by Rajan @ 9:46 AM

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Google Content Blocker

"Google's mission is to organize the world's advertising for maximum exposure to Web users. Unfortunately, annoying Web content often overwhelms the page, causing many users to become distracted and overlook the ads."
Check out Google Content Blocker. [Via J-walkblog]

| posted by Ramki @ 4:08 PM

Monday, May 09, 2005

Firefox Ads

Three TV commercials for firefox.

Do you need a commercial to promote a good product? In Internet world, those who want better browsing will automatically switch to firefox. Ofcourse, there are those ignorant browsers who end up as the target of all the worms and viruses. But is this really required? Does google air commercials?

| posted by Ramki @ 10:01 PM


Watch Online Television

Beeline TV has about 145 TV channels live feed from about 35 countries. Interestingly all these TV links work. Definitely watching a Japanese movie or watching Teleshoping in Hebrew TV channel will be fun! :-)
For Tamils and Raj: Jaya TV live feed  ;  Sun News updated everyday

| posted by Ramki @ 12:38 AM


The Squooshy Pineapple

"Earth  was shocked to its core today when cats hacked into every computer screen on earth, issuing their finicky demands to the stunned multitudes. Microsoft says they're 'working on it.'"
-
News from a funny news website. They have a funny twist on almost all the current news stories. Similiar to " The Onion" - America's finest news source.

| posted by Ramki @ 12:30 AM


Trash cans and postboxes of India

Trash cans in India - A photo essay by an American. This site has a nice collection of snaps of India. Also check the different types of post boxes in India

I found this site also on the net: An American Jenniffer Polan likes India so much that she stayed there for lots of years, converted to Hinduism, changed her name to Jayanthi and is currently in America helping Hinduism spread. Her journal on Trip to Chennai is excellent!

| posted by Ramki @ 12:20 AM

Sunday, May 08, 2005

Some funny Videos

Heaven can wait: Buckle up
Make love not terror (Mildly Not Safe for Work)

Good for heart (NSFW)
Descent to Hell
Chinese Vs USA football

| posted by Ramki @ 11:30 PM

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Map myIndia

Incase you are not aware, mapmyIndia is creating a Yahoo maps type searchable map of India. Currently all the metros are mapped and driving directions are available. The directions tell you which National/State highway (or) local pathli-galis to take to reach a particular place. Also there are maps of many famous tourist locations in India.



A good start indeed!

| posted by Ramki @ 7:03 PM


International Advertising awards

Watch the finest TV ads from various countries at Ad-awards.


European ads are the most creative and funny. Actually I remember some of the Indian ads also being very good. But there is no representation of India(Asia in general) in these ads. I guess Asia is waiting to catch up in the International scene in ads as well.

| posted by Ramki @ 6:47 PM

Tuesday, May 03, 2005

Educated soldiers

The US armed forces have not been able to meet their recruitment numbers for the last 3 years. This NYT article points at lowering of recruitment standards just to be able to meet numbers.

In a conversation with a friend I came to know about the compulsory service with the armed forces policy in Singapore. Singapore was desperate to build its army in 1967 since it feared transgression of 2 large muslim states bordering it.
"After World War I Germany was forbidden to use compulsory military service under the Treaty of Versailles. The consequences were that the armed forces became increasingly isolated from society and developed an indifferent attitude towards the democratic system ("a state within the state").". This page tries to rationalize the universal conscription in the Bundeswehr.

Isnt "compulsory service" antithetical to the concept of  "free will" ?? Personally I would love to have a world army of Gandhians who would be responsible of solving issues in Rwanda or Darfur or Iraq or Palestine. But given that we are still not a world community and take a lot of pride in maintaining our national identity the practicality lies in the fact that we have our national armies.

Compulsory service could be replaced by something similar to  ROTC (in USA) minus their bias against certain sections of the society. If young people can be made aware of the reasons for having a military and given an opporutnity to have a close look at life with the armed forces we might inspire people to join the army. Also the people who join this way will be more likely to understand the reasons for going into combat. It should be interesting to see how many recruits a program like ROTC can generate.

| posted by Rajan @ 2:07 PM


You think best when you lie down!

Lazy Desi always knew this, article below says that you think best when you lie down !


A new research conducted by scientists at Northumbria University in northern England suggests that lying down is the best way to think!

According to The Sunday Times, the study suggest that men and women can solve problems faster when lying down compared with when they are standing up or sitting.

Anagram tests were given to 20 men and women volunteers to see whether there was any difference in the speed with which they were solved.

They were given 32 anagrams as a test. Each was five letters long but had only one correct solution, like 'model or 'noble'.

The longest solution took one person 42.6 seconds to turn 'nodru' into round. The quickest was for 'osien': noise.

The anagrams were flashed on a screen to each of the men and women when they were either upright or lying down on a mattress.

The volunteers carried out the tests alone in a cubicle with an examiner outside. The anagrams were shown on a screen that they controlled with a switch.

The maximum time a word was on the screen was 45 seconds. Results showed the average time for solving the anagrams standing up was almost 30 seconds, three seconds, or 10 per cent, slower than the average lying down speed.

The effect of adrenaline in the brain could explain the thought process. "When you are standing upright, the blood flow has to work a bit harder to get all the way around. But if you are lying down, your brain is getting more blood flow," lead researcher Nick Neave said.

| posted by HollaMan @ 2:15 AM

Monday, May 02, 2005

Video Blogs

Watch Steve Jobs introduce the Mac in 1984. Can't believe PC's have evolved so much in the 20 years of their existence.
.
Yesterday, Google co-founder Larry Page gave an amazing talk to the 2005 graduating class of the University of Michigan College of Engineering. Larry's entire speech can be found here. (Via slashdot)

Video Blogs:
As blogs have become extremely popular and lots of amateur photographers claiming to maintain good photoblogs, Videoblogs are slowly increasing in number. All u need is a video camera and some 'creative' thing that u want to shoot. Shoot the video and there it goes in ur videoblog. All major blog engines are supporting videoblogs and some of the videoblogs are really good. Remember these are shot by amateurs with no major software for video editing etc.,


(Via Gnitseretni)

| posted by Ramki @ 12:30 AM

Sunday, May 01, 2005

Want to spam me?

37 cents please...

| posted by Ramki @ 10:43 PM


Why 24x7?

Why can't it be 28x6?  Now that our society has been transformed by mass production, division of labor, and artificial lighting, there is no longer any great advantage to being diurnal. There are, in fact, considerable advantages to breaking free of the 24 hour cycle.



Some of the benefits of extending the length of the day are relatively clear: you would simply have more time to do the things you wanted to do. Everything you do now in a typical day could be done for a little longer: you could sleep longer, work longer, spend longer blocks of time with your family and friends, and have more leisurely meals. Other benefits become apparent when you realize that "daily" activities would occur less frequently: only six times each week instead of seven. Work, for example, could be accomplished in larger blocks of time, with fewer trips to and from the work place.

| posted by Ramki @ 3:52 AM

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