Burn! Burn!

This is so good, I had to copy paste it here- ENJOY!

Save Delicious, Yahoo- It is not yet dead, you are killing it.

Delicious is going to be shut down. It is all downhill from here.

Please take a look at the gadget left of this post. This is the best I could do.

It was much more than a bookmarking site for me. It helped me learn the value of tagging, still haven't mastered it, though- but everywhere I share and post, I am looking for ways of adding tags. The tag feature is the one that tells me the site means business.

Read Write Web has a great article on it.

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• Making the transition from Delicious to Evernote (evernote.com)

An Outrageous Pat Down- will this be America's Draupadi-gate?

Image via Wikipedia

Long time readers of this blog will remember that we had no illusions about Obama. In fact, we preferred George Bush.

The recent incident at Mississippi airport, where the Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar was subjected to a humiliating pat-down, proves our fears right. Not that we expect the Airport Authorities to grant our ambassador any special priveleges- our babus enjoy far too much already. It is just that this is not the right thing to do, not to any person, least of all a woman.

What happened is that, though according to regulations, the lady is entitled to for a private screening (ick!), her request was rejected, and she was subjected to the pat down in " a clear box where two officers searched her in clear view," reports Sepia Mutiny.

And what does a pat-down entail? When you read it, you understand why Ambassador Meera Shankar felt so humiliated, she said, "I will never come back here."

According to Aclum.org,

"TSA says that during the new standard pat-down, a screener of the same sex will examine your head, shirt collar area, and waistband, and may use either the front or back of his or her hands to feel your body, including buttocks, around breasts, and between the legs, feeling up to the top of the thigh. Women in tight skirts that don't allow an agent to feel the thigh area may be asked to remove the skirt in a private screening area and will be given a gown or towel to put on."

(Thanks, Tory, for the link)

We don't know how far they got ahead with the pat-down, but ambassador or not, this is plain humiliation for no reason. I think this is a proof, if we ever needed one, that the legislative authorities in US have lost their head.

It is a sad state of affairs, given the constitution of that nation, and the ideals enshrined by its founding fathers.

Related articles

• Meera Shankar, Indian Ambassador To The U.S., Frisked At Mississippi Airport (huffingtonpost.com)

The Chrome Web Store

I suppose you know all about it, Google has unveiled its Chrome Web Store today, whatever it is. I've been caught up with it, and wasted about three hours or so- installing and uninstalling applications. Much of what appears in the store looks useless, being links to websites, but I found some gems. Do take a look at this application, for instance- Write Space

Image by kengo via Flickr

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The Paranormal Powers of Erotica!

Elegant writing, but if ever there is a justification to go WTF!, this is it- you already knew erotica turned you on, but even your paranormal powers perk up, you knew that?-

"How strong do they need to be? That bring us to their most philosophical point: They say the experiments were "exploratory" work, where the researchers didn't define what they were looking for or how they would know they'd found. In the experiment with the erotic pictures, Bem, they write, "tested not just erotic pictures, but also neutral pictures, negative pictures, positive pictures, and pictures that were romantic but non-erotic. Only the erotic pictures showed any evidence for precognition." That's an exploratory experiment, or, as they call it, "a fishing expedition." Lemuel Moyé calls it "data dredging.""

- Psi Skeptics: If Psychologists Find Signs of ESP, Maybe Psychologists Have a Problem | Mind Matters | Big Think

The Outsourcing of Health

The outsourcing of drug trials-

Many of today’s trials still take place in developed countries, such as

Britain, Italy, and Japan. But thousands are taking place in countries with

large concentrations of poor, often illiterate people, who in some cases

sign consent forms with a thumbprint, or scratch an “X.” Bangladesh has been

home to 76 clinical trials. There have been clinical trials in Malawi (61),

the Russian Federation (1,513), Romania (876), Thailand (786), Ukraine

(589), Kazakhstan (15), Peru (494), Iran (292), Turkey (716), and Uganda

(132). Throw a dart at a world map and you are unlikely to hit a spot that

has escaped the attention of those who scout out locations for the

pharmaceutical industry.

The two destinations that one day will eclipse all the others, including

Europe and the United States, are China (with 1,861 trials) and India (with

1,457)."

It does no good to anyone, of course-

"Once upon a time, the drugs Americans took to treat chronic diseases, clear

up infections, improve their state of mind, and enhance their sexual

vitality were tested primarily either in the United States (the vast

majority of cases) or in Europe. No longer. As recently as 1990, according

to the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, a

mere 271 trials were being conducted in foreign countries of drugs intended

for American use. By 2008, the number had risen to 6,485—an increase of more

than 2,000 percent. A database being compiled by the National Institutes of

Health has identified 58,788 such trials in 173 countries outside the United

States since 2000. In 2008 alone, according to the inspector general’s

report, 80 percent of the applications submitted to the F.D.A. for new drugs

contained data from foreign clinical trials. Increasingly, companies are

doing 100 percent of their testing offshore. The inspector general found

that the 20 largest U.S.-based pharmaceutical companies now conducted

“one-third of their clinical trials exclusively at foreign sites.” All of

this is taking place when more drugs than ever—some 2,900 different drugs

for some 4,600 different conditions—are undergoing clinical testing and

vying to come to market.

With possibly terrible, lethal consequences-

One big factor in the shift of clinical trials to foreign countries is a

loophole in F.D.A. regulations: if studies in the United States suggest that

a drug has no benefit, trials from abroad can often be used in their stead

to secure F.D.A. approval. There’s even a term for countries that have shown

themselves to be especially amenable when drug companies need positive data

fast: they’re called “rescue countries.” Rescue countries came to the aid of

Ketek, the first of a new generation of widely heralded antibiotics to treat

respiratory-tract infections. Ketek was developed in the 1990s by Aventis

Pharmaceuticals, now Sanofi-Aventis. In 2004—on April Fools’ Day, as it

happens—the F.D.A. certified Ketek as safe and effective. The F.D.A.’s

decision was based heavily on the results of studies in Hungary, Morocco,

Tunisia, and Turkey.

Read more of this great article at Vanity Fair

Books of Poetry

Sharing more content. It looks like that is all I am capable of at this moment. Anyway, this is better than anything I could possibly come up with out of my head

This is about poetry- it is alright if you like to read poems, but the experience of reading a book of poems by an individual poet is an experience that is not of the ordinary kind-

Reading a poetry book cover-to-cover is a vastly different experience fromreading individual poems. It can be exhausting, as watching an entire opera can be exhausting. ....

I have gotten to know several poets through their books of verse. While, ofcourse, “the narrator is not the poet,” the composition of poetry is an actof personal exposure and the publication of poetry is an act of public intimacy. ....

... In *Tantalus in Love* Alan Shapiro records the inside and outside of a dying marriage with exquisite skill and filigreed detail: his wife’s beautiful body, poised in yoga each morning, just out of touch; his children, watching their parents dancing and laughing together for the last time. Autobiographical or not, volumes of poetry feather open the writer’s human heart and lay it, pinned and spread, on butterfly pages.....

This experience of an emotional or intellectual journey is probably the most valuable, and the most difficult, reward of reading entire volumes of verse.The binding threads are more likely to be ideas or perspectives than characters or conflicts. ...

Read more at Curator, In Praise of the Book.

The Real Big Fight

This rings true, though I believe more than eighty percent of us would feel sceptical about it-

George W. Bush - America's global fight against AIDS

"I am happily out of the political business. But I can offer some friendly advice to members of Congress, new and old. A thousand pressing issues come with each day. But there are only a few that you will want to talk about in retirement with your children. The continuing fight against global AIDS is something for which America will be remembered. And you will never regret the part you take."

In an earlier passage, he writes,

"During a presidency often forced to focus on issues of national security, the fight against global disease was sometimes viewed as an anomaly or exception. It wasn't and isn't. America has a direct stake in the progress and hope of other nations."

True or false, sincere or not, his observations are worth noting.

Related articles

• George W. Bush Champions the Fight Against AIDS in Africa (commentarymagazine.com)

The Qatar Conundrum

Why and how did Qatar get to host the world cup? A great, well reasoned analysis with a brilliant, informed conclusion-

"What differentiates Qatar, however, is that its case to win the World Cup by legitimate means — for all the reasons I have outlined above — would seem to be relatively weak. Several months ago, oddsmakers had put its chances at about 6-1 against, versus 5-2 against for the United States — and that was before FIFA designated it as high-risk. From the point of view of Bayesian statistics, that makes the probability of bribery greater.

If anything untoward occurred, it will probably be discovered, eventually. But whatever the reasons for it, FIFA’s decision is hard to understand."- Qatar a Questionable World Cup Host - NYTimes.com

Linking to Specific Paragraph and Sentence in New York Times

Check this link- it takes you straight to the quoted para-

WikiLeaks Archive - U.S. and Pakistan, Ever Wary - NYTimes.com

"It may be the most unnerving evidence of the complex relationship — sometimes cooperative, often confrontational, always wary — between America and Pakistan nearly 10 years into the American-led war in Afghanistan. The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of news organizations, make it clear that underneath public reassurances lie deep clashes over strategic goals on issues like Pakistan’s support for the Afghan Taliban and tolerance of Al Qaeda, and Washington’s warmer relations with India, Pakistan’s archenemy."

While reading the New York Times, and when you want to quote any particular para, click the shift key twice. Little marks appear left of the start of every para. click one of those marks- you get the url of the quoted para in your address bar!

There is another cute way of linking to NYT- click this link, and you will see the emphasised sentence highlighted in colour-

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/world/asia/01wikileaks-pakistan.html?pagewanted=all#h7s2

The h7s2 sort of command does the trick.

Adding the hashtag at the end of the url, followed by para number and sentence number links to the relevant quote.

Substituting h for p (page number) highlights the quoted sentence.

Thank you, NYT., you are my favourite magazine.

Would we Come to Need WikiLeaksLeak?

Image via           Wikipedia

The ultimate irony of whistleblowing: or may be the yin-yang of secrets and public interest-

News Desk: WikiLeaks Evolves : The New Yorker

"With the American embassy cables, Assange contacted the State Department personally to ask for the government’s input. On November 26th, he wrote to the U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, and said, “WikiLeaks would be grateful for the United States Government to privately nominate any specific instances (record numbers or names) where it considers the publication of information would put individual persons at significant risk of harm that has not already been addressed.” Assange even noted—without irony, it seems—that “WikiLeaks will respect the confidentiality of advice provided by the United States Government and is prepared to consider any such submissions made without delay.” Needless to say, the Obama Administration declined his offer and demanded that he return all of the cables."

The River of Time Runs Backwards

This is so elegant, and seems so important, I can't resist sharing this-

Finally, we all know that practice improves learning. Bem tested students' memory for word lists and then had them engage in extensive practice (e.g. typing out) for some of the words but not others. His finding? That memory performance was superior for words that the students went on to practice afterwards - a kind of reverse learning effect whereby your memory is improved now based on study you do later.

-Dramatic study shows participants are affected by psychological phenomena from the future

Rockmelt- the Social Browser

I don't know about you, but if I were someone who is connected to my friends on the net through Facebook and Twitter and other such social sites, Rockmelt looks like a brower tailormade for me. I am scared that Facebook and Twitter would drain my time, but the looks of it makes go all trembling at the knees.

Great concept. This is their blog.

Do take a look at it, give Rockmelt a try. It is probably Chrome meets Facebook type of product.

The Art of Blogging- and Journalism

Extremely good writing. Brings out the distinction between blogging and journalism in the most fundamental sense.

By the way, if you want to be a good blogger, read this real close: this will serve you better than you'd ordinarily expect.

Really good print journalism is ego-free. By that I do not mean that the writer has no skin in the game, or that the writer lacks a perspective, or even that the writer does not write from a perspective. What I mean is that the writer is able to let the story and the reporting process, to the highest possible extent, unfold without a reporter's insecurities or parochial concerns intervening. Blogging is an ego-intensive process. Even in straight news stories, the format always requires you to put yourself into narrative. You are expected to not only have a point of view and reveal it, but be confident that it is the correct point of view. There is nothing wrong with this. As much as a writer can fabricate a detachment, or a "view from nowhere," as Jay Rosen has put it, the writer can also also fabricate a view from somewhere. You can't really be a reporter without it. I don't care whether people know how I feel about particular political issues; it's no secret where I stand on gay marriage, or on the science of climate change, and I wouldn't have it any other way. What I hope I will find refreshing about the change of formats is that I will no longer be compelled to turn every piece of prose into a personal, conclusive argument, to try and fit it into a coherent framework that belongs to a web-based personality called "Marc Ambinder" that people read because it's "Marc Ambinder," rather than because it's good or interesting.I Am a Blogger No Longer - Marc Ambinder - Politics - The Atlantic

In our Best Interest

President Obama, as our national television channels fondly call him, made a reference to Pakistan in the speech he gave at our Parliament. His speech possibly is a reasonable indication of the basis of our policy vis a vis Pakistan:

Our strategy to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda and its affiliates has to succeed on both sides of the border. That is why we have worked with the Pakistani government to address the threat of terrorist networks in the border region. The Pakistani government increasingly recognizes that these networks are not just a threat outside of Pakistan-they are a threat to the Pakistani people, who have suffered greatly at the hands of violent extremists.

And we will continue to insist to Pakistan's leaders that terrorist safe-havens within their borders are unacceptable, and that the terrorists behind the Mumbai attacks be brought to justice. We must also recognize that all of us have and interest in both an Afghanistan and a Pakistan that is stable, prosperous and democratic-and none more so than India." - IBN Live

A Pakistan that is stable, prosperous and democratic! Good luck on that.

Short of dismantling all of the governing apparatus in Pakistan, there is not much that either India or US can do to help them get there, despite it being in the best interests of India. And as our beloved Leader, President Obama put it, none more so than India that would breath a sigh of relief to see a stable, prosperous and democratic Pakistan, and none more helpless than India to help them in any way to get there.

Not that anyone in Pakistan in their right senses would want India to help Pakistan get better. In fact, there could be sizable section of intelligensia in our country, that would bristle at any such conceit on the part of our government.

Pakistan is hopeless. It lives only in dreams, and nightmares.

"The first indication that something was wrong came from a cryptic message left as a status update on the player's Facebook page. 'Leaving Pakistan cricket because get bad msg fr 1 man fr lose the match in last game.'""- Pakistan news: Zulqarnain in UK, mystery over exit from Dubai | Pakistan Cricket News | Cricinfo.com:

When things like this happen, and the man who has been threatened by bookies, find refuge not somewhere across the border, but all the way to Britain, there is not much hope for anyone, least of all, not Pakistan or India.

Given the historic and cultural similarities, one would have thought that India could be the better option for him than Britain. Not that he would find potentially better economic opportunities in Britain.

Remember Taslima Nusreen. She might be better off in Britain or somewhere in the west.

Probaly Zulqarnain is not only honest, but also realistic.

Good luck for him- he has much better chances of enjoying it than Pakistan or India.

Or our beloved Leader, President Obama for that matter.

Postscript: President Obama's speech seems to have found a chord in the liberal and enlightened heart of The Hindu- Obama's Parliament speech a hit.

Thanks for letting us know you appreciate that one.

Deepak Chahar- a Dream Spell

A dream spell at Jaipur- see the magic weave, swerve the ball on the air and off the pitch.  Brilliant. Breathless. Hope Deepak Chahar moves forward from here.



More of this is at The Ranji Trophy Chronicles.

Related articles

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Adarsh Housing Society scamsters- CHARGE THEM WITH SEDITION!

It is a conscious decision not to write anything about our politics here. If I did, I could put up three posts everyday- it enrages me so much.

I don't want to rant, but I need to vent my anger- Politicians are in it, Bureaucrats got some of it, and the worst of it- Army Officers, who ought to have known better.

There is talk of trying The Ghoul of small Things for sedition for her yet another hysterical raving- she won't break the back of this nation.

These idiots will.

Totally insane heartlessness to grab something meant for Kargil heroes and their widows, and make a pile of money out of it. They should be shot.

Okay, let's not waste our bullets.

Just stand them up on our LoC where honest, precious lives are lost valiantly and so vainly.

Ernest Hemingwasy- the art of writing

Image via Wikipedia

Do check this interview at The Paris Review-

INTERVIEWER

     But are there times when the inspiration isn’t there at all?

HEMINGWAY

     Naturally. But if you stopped when you knew what would happen next, you can go on. As long as you can start, you are all right. The juice will come.

You immediately get the idea that this is the word of a master. Insightful.

Poetry is Dead

Please look at this page-

Official Google Research Blog: Poetic Machine Translation:

"Once upon a midnight dreary, long we pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of translation lore.
When our system does translation, lifeless prose is its creation;
Making verse with inspiration no machine has done before.
So we want to boldly go where no machine has gone before.
Quoth now Google, 'Nevermore!'"

Specify what you want-Haiku, Sonnet, Venba- whatever. And feed it any kind of dreary sludge you find written. Google will transform it into gems of poetic pieces.

Quoth now Google, "Nevermore!"

oh yes, nevermore.

Data Visualisation for Bloggers

I am looking for a site that will help me do better data visualisation- it should be easy and quick. This one I don't understand, but then they have a wonderful embed feature that is an absolute must for bloggers, so I thought why shouldn't I help them out with a link? :)

So here goes.



Hope they provide us with a better interface. This one is absolutely useless if you don't know anything about it.

Related articles

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You can't do it in the shower for lack of friction...

I am surprised that people are worried about this-

Masterbation Question Please Help? - How to - Help - Masterbation - Please - Question - Search Answer via kwout

MeeHive to Shut Down

I am saddened to hear that Meehive will stop its services this month. I had great hopes for it- it promised to deliver a personalised newspaper, the user interface was good to look at. Meehive had autopost features that allowed you to share links and comments to Twitter and Facebook. Unfortunately, it never got off. There was no conversations. All I got news of in the "Your Friends Activity" is Louis making friends one after another, to no purpose. No one was doing any talking.

Actually, I need a personalised newspaper that delivers me news that I am interested in. There are two ways to go about it- one is the RSS way, where I subscribe to the feeds I am interested in, and sit back and wait for the news and posts to come into my reader. This is the way it has worked so far, but with the popularity of Twitter and Facebook, where you get news more dynamically, the idea of using a passive reader is somewhat passe.

Meehive was a step further from that idea. It let you choose your topics, and then comment and share the feed that came in. Adding and deleting topics were easy, you could do that with a click, and the it was possible to set it up so that your comments would show up in Twitter and Facebook. But then, no one was talking.

I feel they should have changed a few things to make it more interesting- but I suppose their idea of what we wanted was not in sync with what we are comfortable with. So it goes.

And in its place, the email from Meehive team tells me, is Tweetbeat and Tweetbeat Firsthand. Sorry, this one won't work. Who is going to sit watching tweets on a particular topic or person and retweet and reply them? It gets boring after the first few minutes. And then, if the topic is real hot, the tweets pour in quicker than you could possibly read. Come on, it gets stale after a while. It will, won't it- how many original thoughts can you generate on any given issue? That is what Tweetbeat is.

If you thought Tweetbeat is bad, it gets worse with Firsthand. You are supposed to download a browser addon so that when you visit a page, you get blue icons next to names and things people have tweeted about. All you need do is go hover over the icon, and you can read what Tweeple are saying about that.

Why would you do that? Suppose I am interested to read something about the Big Bang theory because there is something about it on CBS. I open a page and a blue icon comes up somewhere near Big Bang Theory, I hover over there, and get this-

  

i heart Shamy! #bigbangtheoryFri Oct 08 00:04:28 via webBenal Patel
BenalPatel

See?

---

What we need is something that combines the dynamics of Twitter and Facebook with a more traditional feed reader.  The feed reader part should get the feeds of the links that are shared by my friends and lists that I follow, and display them in full- video, audio, text, whatever, preferably in Readability format. And there should be a panel where I can interact with my friends the way I do in Twitter or Facebook.

This should not be too difficult. Why don't someone think of it- a site with the usual single sentence format of Twitter that can be expanded to show the full text. And if you choose to,  you can post it back to Twitter or Facebook or pass it on to your contacts or Blog or whatever...

It should be possible. 

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Packrati Bookmarks Tweeted Links to your Delicious Account

I am automatically bookmarking URLs I tweet and favorite to my del.ico.us account. Check it out! http://t.co/WxUU7Bz via @packratiusTue Oct 05 01:06:26 via Tweet Buttonகளிமண் கலயம்
kalimankalayam

I came to kinow about Packrati.us via Digital Inspiration.

Seems promising- my activity on Twitter is mostly sharing of interesting links. Packrati automatically saves the tweeted links in your delicious account, converting your hashtags into delicious tags. Since Twitter is notorious for the short shelf life of tweet outs, Packrati might be a great way to archive your bookmarks.

Google Scribe

Image via Wikipedia

I am doing this post mainly to see how good this stuff called Google Scribe is. I have the bookmarklet installed on my browser, and I see a blue pencil hovering on top of the right hand corner of this text box. It is a bit slow though, I have to wait for a while for the suggestions to come on the screen. But it works, that is a comfort.

If you keep typing, it is not of much use- but if you stop a bit to think what should come next, may be, Google will tip you with the right word.

It is a faint hope- but when you have run aground, and can't think what you should write of next, this service is like a lifeline- possibly, it opens up new frontiers, these words, may be the post will write by itself.

Shall we start doing that then? Okay, I will type in some innocuous words, and pursue the stream of words that Google Scribe suggests. The scribe suggestions are in italics.

---
This article posted Special Investigation and the private sphere of the individual author or authors of the present investigation was undertaken with a view toward the development of novel strategies for the use of the word and deed. Nonsense. Wait a while, scribe, while I bring this sentence into order.

This article, a Special Investigation, intended to be a post that explores the private sphere of the individual author or authors, was undertaken with a view towards the development of novel strategies for thinking and expression. Wow! Google Scribe suggested all this!

Okay, let me see if we can pull out a story from our Scribe's Hat.

Death in the Family. Life is too short not to enjoy, but also the best place to plan and share your thoughts. The time now is the time for which each individual must decide which method works. It is not intended or designed or intended for occupancy. A new approach based on fuzzy clustering approach based on this information but....


Sounds promising, but nble. Scribe can't write all by itself- may be a post on our Prime Minister's direction to the Supreme Court, a haughty puff at the suggestion that rotting grains may be given away to poor and indigent persons for free?

Possibly. If you put in the words and phrases of a day's issue of The Hindu, may be I can write an editorial.

I promise that if Google customises this functionality to suit my style of writing, I can throw in a few nouns and verbs and generate an entire blog post: possible, a great idea.

All I need is to specify some news items, and then some blog posts: and I prompt the scribe to use specific nouns and verbs in specific context, it might generate a post.

I think it possibly does, going by what I read in some blogs:  they have gotten hold of the scribe and it writes for them already.

Read more about Google Scribe.

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Playing with Data

There was a time when I was passionate about figuring out the actual situation of social and economic development of India. I would set up alerts, and find how India compares with other countries in news about GDP., cotton exports, anything. The results were a huge let down, if you put up a chart we'll be somewhere near mean, and sometimes, below mean. I got bored, and stopped doing this.

So, when I came to know about Google Public Data Explorer, I couldn't resist checking some boxes and see what comes up. This is what you get-

This is urban access to sanitation facilities- mostly toilets, I think-



And this is contraceptive usage among women of the age of fifteen and forty-nine:



We need to bridge a large gulf to catch up with Sri Lanka, way ahead of us.

Do play around with Google Public Data Explorer- let's see what you get.

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Nuts

I am late in on this- Randiv bowled a no-ball to deny Sehwag his century, and every paper I read excoriates Randiv and Sri Lanka, and sermonises on something called sportsmanship- an endangered beast, if not yet extinct.

I think the administrators need to take some of the blame: okay, India needed one to win, Randiv bowls a no-ball, one run given, match over, no matter that Sehwag hit it for a six.

But what if India had needed two at that stage, and the same thing had happened? Sehwag would have got those runs, right?

The rule is clear on that score- at least in Wikipedia when I last looked at it: "The run awarded for the no ball is not credited to an individual batsman's score but is tallied separately as part of the team's score. Any additional runs scored by the batsman off the bat, whether by running or by a boundary, are included in the batsman's score."

It is not right that the same action yields two different results under different conditions- they should change these rules, unless they are playing God, imho.

How to Add the Official Retweet Button into Every Post of Your Blog

Twitter has come up with an official Retweet button, you might probably know that. There is an advantage to it: the link is shortened, but you get an idea of the exact location of the shared page, see Techie Buzz. That is the general idea, though it did not work that way in a tweet that I shared.

I found a way to add that button to this blog: it is right here, down every post.- if you want to know how to add the official Twitter Retweet Button into your blog so that it shows up under every post like it does here, here is how I did that. I am a total idiot when it comes to html, javascript etc., but if I can find a way to do it, so can you.

Thanks to Anshul Dudeja, I made a few changes to the script he provides in his page, added it to the HTML the way he says it should be done, and voila!

This is the script:

<div style="float: right;
margin-left: 10px;"> <a class="twitter-share-button"
data-count="none" data-via="yourtwittername" href="http://twitter.com/share">Tweet</a><script
src="http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" type="text/javascript"> </script>

Please replace your twitter name for "yourtwittername"

Compare this version with that given by Anshul Judeja, where the code is displayed better.

How this script should be added to the blog is at this page:  How Add Retweet Button to Blogger Blogs at Anshul Judeja.

If there is any better way, please let me know, and I'll adopt that.

The Deccan Chronicle: a Repulsive Instance of Cultural Cringe

Look at this screenshot from Deccan Chronicle:

Mau-mauing the ‘ground zero’ mosque | Deccan Chronicle | 2010-08-11 via kwout

Now compare this with what Christopher Hitchens has written in The Slate:

The dispute over the "Ground Zero mosque" is an object lesson in how not to resist intolerance. - By Christopher Hitchens - Slate Magazine via kwout

This is the cultural cringe that Christopher Hitchens was speaking out against in the first place!

(In case you didn't look close enough, "Muslim cultural blackmail" has been emended as "cultural blackmail," and an entire sentence, calling 9/11 a genuine outrage, has been deleted)

A Curveball

Wonder what this is?

Oh yes, Google has come out with a feature called Curve in Google Documents, and this is my attempt to paint something with it. I know this is not pretty, but at least it is something.

I should have tried different colours,  it might look better then.

Who are They?

I think now that I am dry, I should perhaps make a translated post out of what I read in the Tamil blogs.

Here is a piece of Sujatha.

In Delhi, while I was riding back home in my scooter, there was a man lying in the middle of the road. I stopped to look at him, and found he was very much dead.The cars that come and go, they all hesitate, edge round the man in homage, and accelerate away. No one stopped. They never do. I noticed the porcelain phone at the house on the other side of the road, told them the news and got the advice, "Why do you bother? They will see to it"

Who are they?

via Balhanuman Blog

Apples and Oranges

Image via Wikipedia

I am happy to be writing a post here at last- this is not much, but at least it is a beginner.

Please look at the left sidebar. What do you see? Something called Apples and Oranges, right?

I am proud to say that I turned developer and built that widget, right from scratch, thanks to Wolfram Alpha. It helps you compare two objects of the same class: apples and oranges, nile and amazon, london and paris, sampras and nadal and so on.

But Soulberry and Balajhi, I am sorry to say you can't compare Tendulkar and Dravid with this widget: it is perhaps a silent acknowledgement from Wolfram Alpha that the two belong to a different class.

Wolfram Alpha, gentlemen, seems to be deaf and blind to what you'd expect the ordinary American is deaf and blind to.

Rather unfortunate, you'd accept, when  you consider that China and India together would generate many more queries that what United States of America does now or in some future time.

Let's hope they go global.

In the meantime, enjoy - I compared Angeline Jolie and Brad Pitt and came up with some pretty meagre results: a couple of photos would have enriched it, I think.

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PC - The man for the job

India's problems are plenty and security related are none too insignificant. Sky rocketing prices, falling living standards, and the rest may bug us, yet our security is of utmost importance to us. We don't want to be victims of terrorism and violence, be it from across the border or from inside. It's all the same and terror has only one face. It is in this context that the role of home minister in a government (both central and state) assumes greater significance. Preventing and countering terror through various modes rests on men wielding the home baton. Today I read an article at OutlookIndia about P.Chidambaram, calling him a controversy man. Comments to the article are interesting too. Read it here.

UPA preferred the Dhoti clad Chidambaram to the Suit changing Patil in the aftermath of 26/11. There was a huge expectation as he reluctantly took over charge. Foes and friends (does he have one?) alike, admire his intelligene yet differ on the efficacy of his actions. Many would not tolerate his demeanour and rightly or wrongly he is labelled as an arrogant intellectual. But then we ordinary men and women of India wouldn't bother with that label as long as he ensures internal security. We would even happily call him that if gives us the security we want. On this front, I must say, and many would accept (in normal territories in India), he has been delivering well, since that fateful day in November two years back at Mumbai.

Chidambaram is always a man on mission, be it finance or at home. He has no two ways about it. His way is his only way. He is a 'Flint' as Outlook called him. Hard to break, hard to remove and could be heavy to bear. As long as he is on the right mission, all around him will benefit and clap. When he is not right, people around him could do nothing but rumble. They can't stop him, at least that is what the media has made me believe.

He is facing the brickbats from the media, from his own colleagues in the ministry and party on quite a few issues. Operation Green Hunt is one, opposition to Chinese telecom imports is another and perceived behind the role in skittling Indo - Pak talks is another. He is perceived to be on the 'RIGHT' mission by left wing ideologists and sympathisers both inside and outside the Congress Party. Also his role in his earlier avatar as the advocate of Sterlite (Minerals major) has muddled the minds of his opponents who chide him for the Operation Green Hunt.

I see his point in being wary of Chinese telecom imports. I am with him on this, let Jairam Ramesh focus on environment and global warming debates. Calling a spade as spade is not diplomacy but diplomacy for decades hasn't worked with Pakistan. As one expert named 'Raza' put it in a 'Times Now' show, 'stop talking with Pakistan till they act'. If PC intently played a role, well then I am not complaining. All this talk of Pakistan itself is a victim of terror won't wash here. They are victims of their own terror cousins whereas we are victims of terror sponsored by ISI and Pak army. There is a hell lot of difference here.

Naxalism is a terror but then guns alone cannot silence it. It may at best squeeze the throat of naxalism but how longer can one do it. You will loosen your grip when pain raises in your wrists and hands. Government and the home ministers will have to come up with a genuine effort to end naxalism through talks after a bilateral ceasefire. Above all the Government must respect the aborigines, their rights of the land before allowing its corporate Czars a piece of their land in forests to mine, mine and mine. Government and the Naxals must come out in open and try out a genuine solution. This is where PC has probably got a big role to play. He must shed his guns alone policy and do some walk the talk.

As far as PC as home minister, despite his shortcomings, he is probably the right person for the tough job. I would settle for a hawk home minister and a liberal external affairs minister with a counter balancing Prime minister. We have the first two but not sure about the counter balancing one.

Green slaying on the way to development

Those green trees won't be there by next week

That's a lovely view of trees lining up on both the sides of the road, it will be a thing of the past- not any more in cities. This is a picture of a section of Mettupalayam Road (NH 86 or something) in Coimbatore. This road leads to Ooty. Now the government is broadening the road into four lanes and hence are cutting the trees. Earlier they did it on Avanashi road (NH 47) in Coimbatore. That was when the many buildings that were standing on that road for decades came to our view. One such building had been constructed by GD Naidu and the front wall of that building bears the words "Construction is for Destruction - G.D.Naidu". How true is it?

We are destroying nature to construct a concrete world, unmindful of the consequences and the perils to which we put our future generations. Who cares? We need the comfort of our cars, bikes and we have no time to wait for the few extra minutes to accommodate nature alongside us. Green is slowly going out of our view in our cities.

I was driving down this road yesterday and captured a last glimpse of this splendour before it is brought down by men with their axes.

RBI and its role in Indian economy

Few weeks back a friend of mine posed a question on RBI and asked what do they do? I told him they regulate banking and financial markets. I am not sure that answered his query but then he was not interested in knowing beyond that. Today I read an article in Knowledge @ Wharton about RBI and their role in compensation of top management of banks, including private and foreign banks in India. They are intervening in order to ensure compensation packages of top executives in banks are not encouraging risky investments / lending. This is something that derailed many banks in the west in the past year. Some words of praise in that article kindled my interest to post here on RBI and their role in ensuring relatively peaceful economic life of India.

RBI is responsible for the monetary policy of Indian economy. It has a mandate to contain inflation. They set base interest rate, influence money supply in the economy, set various reserve ratios for banks, intervene and support Rupee in the foreign exchange market, regulate and guide functioning of banks, financial institutions and non-banking finance companies, set lending norms, set risk weightages for various bank assets, etc. The list is too big to remember, for me, and fill here. Let me, in a nutshell, share here, the major role of RBI and its contribution to our economy.

Banks borrow money (through deposits and other modes) and lend money. Money borrowed is their liability and money lent is their asset. Their return from lending should be higher than the cost of borrowing so that they meet their expenses and then make profits. Naturally banks would want to acquire assets that promise more returns. Remember, higher the return, higher will be the risk associated with it. With more exposure to risk, a bank's financial stability is threatened and their ability to repay their lenders is cast a shadow. RBI steps in here and curbs certain types of asset acquisition by banks. Besides it also assigns a risk weightage to each type and class of banking assets. An asset carrying higher risk weight would require a bank to maintain higher capital while a low risk weighted asset wouldn't put much stress on the capital of a bank. This is to ensure that a bank provides for more capital when it goes for more risky assets. Though this is a global practice, risk weightages for various asset types are fixed by individual central banks (like RBI). RBI is one of the earliest central banks to increase the risk weightage of real estate assets (lending to and investment in real estate) and that promptly preempted over exposure of Indian banks to real estate. It is real estate investment bubble that swallowed many banking monsters in the west. Hope I come out clear in my explanation here.

Bank also invest besides lending. Some times it is easier and safer for banks to invest say in government securities and bonds than lend. This, if excessively done, will stifle economic growth as business won't get enough money. RBI, according to situation, dabble with interest rates to discourage or encourage banks' lending and investment activities. Also it ensures country's primary sector, agricultural, gets enough funding support by fixing a minimum limit (a % out of total lending) for primary sector lending. It also plays a vital role in financial inclusion of rural areas.

Banks cannot deploy all the money it borrows as it would affect its liquidity and financial stability. But then not all will retain enough resources to support its customers and lenders. To ensure banks maintain enough cash balance and also sufficient amount of liquid assets (assets that can be converted into cash on quick notice) it sets, adjusts and mandates banks to maintain Cash reserve ratio (CRRs) and Statutory Liquid Ratio (SLRs). These are set in accordance with prevailing economic condition.

RBI plays a major role in Rupee exchange rate. It intervenes in the foreign exchange market to curb speculation effects on Rupee. But there is a general feeling in the import lobby that RBI mostly acts in the interest of export lobby than in general interest.

RBI annually audit banks and financial companies for compliance with their rules and guidelines on functioning and various norms. Through this they ensure banks and financial institutions comply with rules and guidelines set in the interest of monetary stability of the nation.

Related Link

1. Making Management Pay: Reining in Excessive Risk at India's Banks

A Sun of our own...

Image via Wikipedia

See the flicker? It is our own artificial sun, a first step towards the creation of a mediated climate that fulfils "...the metabolic and physiological requirements of a human being in an environment partially or completely removed from earthly influences"

In case you are haunted by the spirit of scepticism, here's more-

"...i-weather makes it possible to live in a situation completely removed from natural locations by producing an artificial circadian rhythm synchronised to match the inner cycle of the human hormonal and endocrine system. In the absence of the natural terrestrial cycle of day and night, it becomes apparent that this inner cycle in fact lasts around 25 hours, and that body temperature, the alternation between sleep and wakefulness, and the accumulation and secretion of substances such as cortisone and oligopeptides, all depend on it. i-weather.org has therefore put together the first specifically human climate."

If your work forces you to sit glued to a monitor, with the natural light of day and night closed off and replaced by the electric glow- our blog is the place to be- we are health-friendly.

Thanks to iweather.org, where you can copy the javascript and add it to your blog- can't get easier than that, right?

Do drop in now and then, the lights change in our blog, and to remind you that we mean business, we go into flashy flickers when you least expect it.

Have a rocking time.

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Wealth, Greed and Misplaced priorities

Image Credit - www.oecd.org

In a span of 24 hours I came across two articles forwarded to my email id by Baskar. Both are disturbing and at the same time intriguing. They are disturbing because both touch upon the powerful and the super rich and how they manipulate the rules and the world to get even richer, all under government supervision. Intriguing because why on earth people owning yacht's, islands etc. would want to benefit from what governments earmarked for needy and how are they so insensitive to people lives when it comes to money.

The first article exposes the big black hole in American farm subsidy and how the super rich (likes of Rockfellers, Ted Turners etc) make the most of it. Between 1995- 2006, American government had spent $200 billion in farm subsidy and nearly 75% of it had gone to the super rich of America, who own farm lands. This besides the tax exemption they get from agricultural income and holdings. The word subsidy rings words like needy, for public benefit, support, protect in my ears. On what count the super rich deserve to avail farm subsidy, earmarked for true farmers? A billionaire worth $200 billion, availing $54,500 per annum as farm subsidy is a clear indication of a rot in the system. If this is what we can expect from America, just think of India and other developing countries.

The second article brings to light the effect of speculation in commodity derivatives. What effect? Death by starvation of millions of children in under developed and poor countries. This besides the impact on poor in all countries. Commodity derivatives came into existence with a purpose. It helped farmers and processors of commodities to hedge their risk of exposure to changing prices of commodities. On the other end it also helped buyers of these commodities to hedge their risk in fluctuating prices. Only when it moved beyond protecting real risks that the problems started. As long as real risk was hedged (involving farmers / processors, buyers of commodities) prices reflected expected supply and demand. But nowadays, irrespective of supply and demand it is the amount of investor (note, not farmer or buyer, investor) interest in a commodity that determines prices of commodities.

Speculation, where people without any risk in commodities are allowed to buy and sell commodity derivative products, is the main culprit of rising prices of commodities (Wheat, Coffee, Pulses, Wheat, Cotton, Oil etc) worldwide. Commodity exchanges nowadays primarily serve the interests of greedy investors more than needy farmers and buyers. The article linked here clearly establishes the link between speculation and price rise in commodities. Though it is organisations like Goldman Sachs that deal in commodity derivatives, they do it for high net worth individuals.

The wealthy wants to become more wealthy even if it means death of children in some East African nation. Many of these people can spend million a day for their lifetime and yet remain wealthy, without any additional income. A mere concentration on their businesses and their primary line of activity would ensure excellent growth of their wealth. Why on earth these rich people want to make profits in a market that acts as a barometer for commodity prices? It beats my understanding. May be the gambling pleasures. How else could this be explained. This world, its institutions, systems and the very structure of governance of the world (barring few countries) is made to make the rich richer and poor, poorer.

The least one could do now is to stay away from agents / brokers who chase us to invest our hard earned money in commodity derivatives.

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Further Readings of the Curious cases of the Literati..

Image via Wikipedia

Further progress on Curiosities of Literature by John Sutherland-

There is something primitive about my taste- the second chapter is about heads, lungs, hearts and bowels, and I found the passages about the excretory functions interesting-

-that Henry James was sent to a grand tour of Europe to ameliorate his constipation - more here at Project Muse

-the quote from The Miller's Tale

"leet fly a fart,
 As greet as it had been a thonder-dent"

-the possibly apocryphal story of the bargeman who owed up to the act when Queen Victoria broke wind on boarding his barge- the bargeman was knighted for this act of nobility

-and above all- this passage from John Aubrey's Brief Lives-

This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.