Musings of a Mumbai bloke

Think and Link

2010-05-26T12:45:00.000-04:00

Check out thinklinkr.com! Create and share outlines in your browser.

Awesome product

New Search Engine

2004-09-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

Hirak talks about this new search engine: A9.com

Wisdom of the Crowds OR Mob craze

2004-09-20T19:36:00.000-04:00

One of the often extended criticisms for political opinion polls is that people who do not matter quiet often form the sample group. This criticism is largely right because who knows how many people who take 10 seconds to give their choice or opinion on a candidate actually take the trouble to go and vote on election day. If the collective public opinion is not right, neither is an expert opinion often on the mark. James Surowiecki in his book Wisdom of the crowds very nicely explains how sometimes the "crowd" is more right than any expert opinion or public poll.

To explain this theory that crowds can be very 'wise' provided this certain conditions are met. In his book he gives an example of the famous show "Who wants to be a millionaire" in which the audience came up with the right answer 91% of the time. In contrast the phone a friend where the contestant called his chosen 'expert' were right only 65% of the time . He goes onto explain that, This was so because it fullfilled the condition that the members of the group were not talking to each other or working on a problem together. They were making individual guesses, which were aggregated and then averaged.

Another example of collective wisdom is that of the Iowa Electronic Market where the political candidates are traded as stock and people actually "buy" shares with real money.
Check out the graph on this link to find out what is the current status of the presidential race .Iowa Electronic Market

Another recent example:
Long before CBS and Dan Rather came forth with their apology about the fraudulent documents about Bush's Vietnam era records, the "Blogosphere" was filled with this opinion-- Wisdom of the Crowds !!!!

Testing the new ITunes link maker

2004-09-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

If you have iTunes downloaded on your computer and you click on this link

your iTunes application will automatically open behind this browser window and take you to the best instrumental music album i have ever heard. check it out !!!

noclimbing

2004-09-17T13:26:00.000-04:00

noclimbing
Originally uploaded by thepipes.

funny pic huh ??

At Harvard...

2004-09-17T13:02:00.000-04:00

Looks like someone at the Harvard university is having fun at our W's expense. Visit this link and check out the image on the upper right corner. A monkey's face slowly morphs into that of our president. :)link While you are there you might want to check out the moral sense test. Its's pretty interesting that someone had the nerve to play this subtle joke on an official harvard university page. :)

My CPA lives in Bangalore !!

2004-09-03T15:14:00.000-04:00

come tax time 2005 if you are going to avail sevices of companies like HR&Block it might very well happen that the accountant who works on your return is in Banglore !!! Thomas L Friedman, author of Lexus and Olive Tree is working on his new book called World is Flat. Acclaimed as an authority on Globalization, Friedman writes for the NY Times. Begining of this year Friedman visited India to report, as he put it, "from the other side of outsourcing". Friedman, in his column in NY Times writes about accountant Mr. Rao in Banglore:

Mr. Rao, whose company, MphasiS, has a team of Indian accountants able to do outsourced accounting work from across the U.S. All the necessary tax data is scanned by U.S. firms into a database that can be viewed from India. Then an Indian accountant, trained in U.S. tax practices, fills in all the basics.
"This is happening as we speak — we are doing several thousand returns," said Mr. Rao. American C.P.A.'s don't even need to be in their offices. They can be on a beach, said Mr. Rao, "and say, `Jerry, you are particularly good at doing New York returns, so you do Tom's returns." He adds, "We have taken the grunt work" so U.S. accountants can focus on customer service and thinking creatively about client needs.
Mr. Rao's ability to service U.S. accounts this way is at the core of a business revolution that has happened over the past few years. I confess: I missed this revolution. I was totally focused on 9/11 and Iraq. But having now spent 10 days in Bangalore, India's Silicon Valley, I realize that while I was sleeping, the world entered the third great era of globalization.

Friedman in this article titled Small and Smaller, explains that we are into Globalization 3.0 and the way he sumed up the article got me excited to sit up and pen this blog after a long overdue blog post.

" So now I wonder: when they write the history of the world 20 years from now, and they come to this chapter — Sept. 11, 2001, to March 2004 — what will they say was most important? The attack on the World Trade Center and the Iraq war? Or, as Mr. Rao suggests, the convergence of PC's, telecom and work-flow software into a tipping point that allowed India to become part of the global supply chain for services the way China had become for manufacturing — creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations, India and China, and giving both nations a huge new stake in the success of globalization. I wonder? "

After A long hiatus....

2004-08-05T09:32:00.000-04:00

This August 4th I reached the magical age of 32 years. Some random thoughts on reaching this "old" age :

--32 is a magical number for a dentist. It has a "now the set is complete" ring to it

--its about time that I become adult enough such that I can discipline myself to write this blog on a regular basis.

If Hillary Clinton was a stock....

2004-01-29T23:47:00.000-05:00

I wish there was a ticker symbol for this Clinton name with listing on NYSE. I would have bought this stock. "Internet chatter" leads me to believe... come july, the democratic convention we will see this name rise to prominence. Will she take the number 2 spot and run as a runnning mate with one of the nominees or will she just wait in the wings till 2008 and then throw herself into the race for the whitehouse? Time will tell.

One thing is for sure this name is going to become a hot topic for talk shows, magazines and blogs for months and years(?) to come. !

The fallout "war against terrorism"

2004-01-25T08:54:00.000-05:00

Its a wecome sign that diplomatic talks between India and Pakistan have resumed.There is news that govt. has begunl dialogue with the political groups in kashmir too. Very encouraging news.
Two questions:
This being the election year, is this just another gimmick?
OR
Is it that with the "war against terrorism" being waged in Iraq and Afghannistan, there is not much money flowing to the militants in Pakistan and the Kashmir Valley?

Any comments?

The coming of age of Hindi movies???

2004-01-20T08:39:00.000-05:00

Watched some good hindi movies lately. "jahnkar beats", "munnabhai MBBS" and "Mr.&Mrs. Iyer". As one of my friends mentioned looks like suddenly the movie directors have graduated to a whole different level. they are moving away from cliched story lines, showing that panche in handling the movie etc.

i want to say this has a lot to do with the last DVD that you and me rented from the neighbourhood indian grocery store. what are the chances that, that rented DVD was a pirated copy 1 in 10? 5 years back the VHS piracy was so rampant that i doubt if i ever saw even 1% original VHS. i think with the advent of this new trend there is more chance that the revenues trickle down to the right people, companies, directors etc.

Besides the over seas audience has become an important market for any movie release. This explains the trend in movies like "american chai, green card fever "

I am very encouraged with the trend. i hope we see more movies like Mr&Mrs. Iyer. this leads me to wonder would we have a paid site for hindi music downloads ever?? like the itunes music store? wishful thinking .....!!!!

Neuromarketing: The New Horizon Neuromarketing

2004-01-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

This story on NPR was perhaps the most intriguing story on science i have heard on radio in the past few months:

Companies are spending millions trying to get inside consumers' minds -- literally -- through the emerging field of neuromarketing. They're using MRI scanners to see how human brains respond to new products and advertising. NPR's Jon Hamilton reports.

Japanese honesty: Just another eastern culture trait?

2004-01-08T23:23:00.000-05:00

In this article in NY times writer Norimitsu Onishi describes how the Japanese are very honest and scrupulous about turning in found articles:

"....lost-and-found centers exist all over Japan,......in 2002 people found and brought to the Tokyo center $23 million in cash, 72 percent of which was returned to the owners, ......."

guess which article has the highest return rate: Cellphones.-75%

What has sustained this honest trait over hundreds of years? Just a quirk? or is it due to the strength of the 'eastern culture' ??? or is it something else?

Truth stranger than fiction

2004-01-07T22:48:00.000-05:00

Since the past 9 months A team of US investigators have been making a last ditch effort to unearth evidence for the much touted Weapons of Mass destruction program in Iraq. Today Washington Post carried an article

"Iraq's Arsenal Was Only on Paper Since Gulf War, Nonconventional Weapons Never Got Past the Planning Stage "by By Barton Gellman
He writes, " investigators have found no support for the two main fears expressed in London and Washington before the war: that Iraq had a hidden arsenal of old weapons and built advanced programs for new ones.......they have discovered no work on former germ-warfare agents such as anthrax bacteria, and no work on a new designer pathogen.... The investigators assess that Iraq did not, as charged in London and Washington, resume production of its most lethal nerve agent, VX, or learn to make it last longer in storage. And they have found the former nuclear weapons program, described as a "grave and gathering danger" by President Bush and a "mortal threat" by Vice President Cheney, in much the same shattered state left by U.N. inspectors in the 1990s."Washington Post article

None of this comes as a surprise though. what surprises me the most is how this news item gets burried under all the other media driven stories.More than 480 soldiers have lost their lives and more than 9000 injured/sick had to be evacuated from Iraq according to this story on NPR The NPR story goes to describe how the reporter had a difficult time with the US military which would not give him an accurate report about injured soldiers. Another NPR story described how the military IS NOT keeping a record of number of civillian deaths. if about ten thousand of US military have been either killed or injured can we imagine the scale of lost iraqi lives?

What a shameful loss!!!

Ads: For the people, by the people....

2004-01-06T23:07:00.000-05:00

I guess groups of people protesting against the incumbent president is a phenomenon as old as democracy itself. In this age when movie making is becoming as simple as"shoot, edit,burn" here is an innovative approach.

MoveOn.org:
"For the last three years, President Bush's policies have ransacked the environment, put our national security at risk, damaged our economy, and redistributed wealth from the middle class to the very wealthiest Americans. Yet thanks to a complacent media, the President has managed to hide behind a carefully constructed "compassionate" image. As the 2004 election nears, it's crucial that voters understand what President Bush's policies really mean for our country. And to do that, we need creative new ads that clearly show what's at stake.
That’s why we decided to launch Bush in 30 Seconds, an ad contest that’s intended to bring new talent and new messages into the world of mainstream political advertising. We're looking for the ad that best explains what this President and his policies are really about -- in only 30 seconds. "

15 ads that made the final list

India : always a contradiction

2004-01-03T21:48:00.000-05:00

Dec 16th 2003. in the Marketplace section of the Wall Street Journal there are two headlines with news concerning India.

The first one:

Indian Techs Step Up Rivalry With the West
It talks about companies like Infosys and Wipro are now hiring away 'Rainmakers' or veteran consultants from U.S., European Competitors To Help Bring In Bigger Contracts. These high profile consultants hired for salaries as high as $330,000 help the indian companies to win contracts valued at $100 million each. The north American and west european markets for computer services are valued at about $422 billion.

Second story

Indian Immigrants Return Home Where Software Jobs Await Them

Scott Thrum writes, "Gaurav Maheshwari an was living the dream of a generation of Indian software engineers. The 30-year-old software programmer was earning more than $100,000 a year at a Silicon Valley start-up, living in a luxury San Jose, Calif., apartment complex with a swimming pool, and driving a Nissan Maxima with a souped-up sound system.
Then, Mr. Maheshwari learned that his employer, Lumenare Networks Inc., was moving all of its programming jobs to India to reduce costs. Uncertain of his U.S. prospects amid the tech slump, and with strong family ties tugging him home, Mr. Maheshwari volunteered to go.

Now, he manages 11 of Lumenare's 30 software engineers near Delhi, for the equivalent of $21,000 a year, about one-fifth his old salary. He lives with his wife, their newborn daughter and his parents in a three-bedroom, three-bathroom apartment in a gated complex. The $178-a-month unit building has a washing machine, covered parking and three balconies.

Mr. Maheshwari now drives a smaller Maruti Zen sedan with "just a simple cassette player." But he's also been struck by how much more modern India appears. When he left, ATM machines were a rarity. Now, they're on every corner, along with improved roads, fancier shopping centers and more diverse restaurants. Mr. Maheshwari figures his standard of living is comparable to what he had in Silicon Valley. In the long run, he figures he won't save as much or own as nice a house, but he's happy to be closer to family and friends."

It was interesting to read to different aspects of indian software industry on the same page on the same day. Will Infosys and Wipro be able to whip up success on the Western Turf like the Reliance and Nirma brand once did on the Indian Soil? Will the hundreds of Gaurav Maheshwaris returning back to india herald a era of "reverse brain drain" in india?

i sure hope so !!

Knitting together

2004-01-02T22:46:00.000-05:00
I watched "Bowling for Columbine" movie yesterday. Impressive. Had i seen this movie in the era of VHS tapes, the movie would have finished and next day i would have mentioned about it to 2 friends about how impressed i was and that would have been an end. But in 2004, things are different, thanks to the additional features section in the DVD I could listen to Michael Moore's talk about the movie, his comments about his oscar speech. This doubled my intrest in his work. Today i was looking up more info on his website. I strongly urge you to see the movie and then visit his website. Very Impressive.The movie is a strong critique on the state of american society, therefore disconcerting. But, the same american society has made it possible for people like him to take a stance and be FREE to express what they think is right.

Well on this website i found this link a political awareness campaign about how George W. Bush is misleading our country I found this link on Michael Moore's webpage. So here i am in matter of two days, flooded with all kinds of info about Michael Moore and his work and urging you to take a glimpse of his work.

World Wide Web : Its only now that i am beginging to understand that in these words the operative word is "WEB". In this "screwed" world i feel the buzz created by personal websites like that of michael moore, mailing lists, blogs etc is going to make it possible to weave a web of positivity in this world going crazy.

Ready, Aim and Shoot !!!!

2004-01-02T21:44:00.000-05:00
a german design to modify male urinals

World Wide Web each day there is an amusing find :)

What will 2004 bring?

2004-01-02T13:54:00.000-05:00
There are a lot of things that one can predict for the new year. i am just going to take a long shot and talk about two things :
Weblogs
iLife

weblogs:
Started in 1999 now at the end of 2003 they are functioning as desktop printing presses for an estimated 1.5 million people. Weblogs are just too varied, too idiosyncratic, to fit into an existing box. Industry analysts might call this disruptive technology because weblogs have changed personal publishing so profoundly that the old rules no longer apply. We are at the beginning of a new age of online publishing - and I predict that this generation of online pamphleteers is just the first wave.

iLife:
In the past few years Apple computers' have been making their computers a digital hub of our lifestyle. It has done a marvelous job of tightly integrating various media applications involving movies, tunes and picutres. I am a recent convert to Mac, but the fervor and enthusiasm for these computers has reached a level of of such fanaticism that friends tell me i need to join AA (Apple Annonymous) for detoxification! Risking further ridicule, I predict that this year Apple is going to gain success above and beyond iTunes Music Store and iPods. . According to the "internet chatter" that i have been listening to exciting new products are in the pipeline. On jan 6th we may have release of three new products : a small 2-4G iPods, a new TiVo Like device iBox and a renvewed updated iLife software package.

Viva Apple !!!!!

Send me an SMS ;-)

2003-12-20T19:08:00.000-05:00
Just found out a convenient trick ... about SMS.

You can send an email to any cell phone in the country by addressing it to 10digitnumber@teleflip.com. It's free, there is no registration required, and you don't have to know the provider of the person you're sending to.

this was posted by "gbotham" on this website Here you will find all the info about SMS you would ever care to know.

Having just invented the airplane, the Wrights stopped flying for two and a half years.

2003-12-19T19:27:00.000-05:00
This article details the whole story. Its a nice article about the highly skilled, intelligent brothers, who lacked social skills, were stubborn and paranoid that someone will steal their idea.

Singing Dentist

2003-12-19T00:01:00.000-05:00
All Things Considered had Dr. Greenstein, a Florida Dentist, on their show recently. He does stand up comedy and recently released a CD called "Spit Happens" excerpts of which can be found on his website.

Singing Dentist : NPR Radio

Dr. Greenstein's Web Site, the Dr. Dan Show

CMC : Mac user group

2003-12-17T22:58:00.000-05:00
As a part of my ongoing apple obsession, I attended my first Mac user group meeting today. whe i mentioned about this upcoming meeting to a friend, he suggested I do not need a user group, instead i should search for an AA (Apple Anonymous) because i was turning into a hard core addict!

Well at this meet one Mr. Bill Dougal was making caricatures and did one for me too, as seen alongside.This club which has a membership of about 150 members, 30 had showed up for this grand Christmas celebration. There was a raffle, food and "stump the geeks" program. There were as many men as women, and most of them were in their 40's. I am led to believe that though iMac has been a comeback vehicle for Apple, it has not gained as big a popularity with the young <30 crowd. Hopefully the iApps, iLife, iPod etc will change all this and more youngsters will embrace this great product. Adopt and then get Addicted!!

A Novel use of RFID technology

2003-12-17T00:22:00.000-05:00
Immigrants awaiting hearings monitored with Electronic ankle bracelets :

Illegal immigrants awaiting deportation hearings are being monitored by electronic ankle bracelets under a federal pilot program that is expected to relieve prison overcrowding nationwide and save taxpayers millions of dollars.
ADT Security Services is monitoring the bracelets to ensure the wearer remains within a specific area and alerts law enforcement if the bracelet is tampered with or leaves the area.

hear about it on NPR Radio

Apple @ 20. Macintosh: born Jan 1984

2003-12-16T19:42:00.000-05:00
why I am an Appple fan

"Yes, we got him, but what should we have been after?

2003-12-16T15:40:00.000-05:00
"With his (Saddam Husein's) capture, we exhale, after a long, deep breath we have held for a year" writes Nancy Gibbs in cover story on the latest Time magazine. "We can measure the meaning of his capture by the measures we have taken — old alliances and long traditions discarded to go to war to take him out and, in the name of democracy, a war that was opposed by vast majorities in most democracies on earth. Hundreds of soldiers killed, hundreds more wounded, $4 billion a month spent and billions more to come, a country broken in pieces that we will be helping rebuild for years to come. And so what is the gift this capture has brought?...."

Exactly what is the gift this capture has brought? What can be legitimate reasons for a democratic country to launch such an attack on another country?

Indian Telemarketing

2003-12-16T00:41:00.000-05:00
NPR recently ran a stroy about a play about the indian telemarketers.

'Alladeen': An Indian Telemarketing Multimedia Drama

Using the backdrop of the legend of Alladin, as well as live performance, 3-D animation, video, and music, Alladeen tells the story of telephone operators in India training to telemarket to American consumers. The show is designed to attract younger audiences. It runs through December 6 at the BAM New Wave festival. NPR's David D'Arcy reports

Dot your 'i' and cross your 't'

2003-12-15T23:35:00.000-05:00
“ The English have always been persnickety about punctuation, but a little book about commas, apostrophes and semicolons is making quite a pointed exclamation.” writes Charles Goldsmith in THE WALL STREET JOURNAL about this small time book written on punctuation which has become a surprise hit with readers. I quote from the article:

The book is "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" by Lynne Truss, a 48-year-old longtime literary editor,. Its title refers to a joke about a panda that walks into a cafe, eats a sandwich, fires a gun and walks out. But as its subtitle -- "A Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" -- suggests, its topic is no laughing matter to many in Britain who remain punctilious about their punctuation.

The book's reputation spread largely by word of mouth, though it did make use of some marketing gimmicks, including a T-shirt that on the front says, "A woman, without her man, is nothing," and on the back says, "A woman: without her, man is nothing."
The book is due to appear in the U.S. next spring.

Another Example of the Brits’ love for the right punctuation is John Richards. An 80-year-old retired copy editor at several regional newspapers, Mr. Richards says he "got fed up with correcting reporters' copy, so I decided to do something about it" by founding the small society. Apostrophe Protection Society in Boston, a town in northern England. It has its own website which has examples of misuse of the apostrophe It has its own website which has examples of misuse of the apostrophe

President Bush's household has relations with India

2003-12-14T21:07:00.000-05:00
Here's a trivia question for you.
Bush's family has an "indian" member. do you know what i am talking about?

click here for answer

read what melvin durai has to say

This polite world we live in

2003-12-12T10:09:00.000-05:00
One of my patients was telling me the ordeal she went through shopping on day after thanksgiving sale. She went to Walmart to buy that $29 DVD. . well thats a story for another blog...but coming back to her 6am visit to Walmart. she was complaining about the horrible rush and the inconsiderate crowd.... etc. People were cutting between lines, jumping the parking spots...in short doing all they could to get what they wanted without being considerate of the other person....

after she left i was thinking about the bombay crowd...and the local trains. it reminded me of the time i went to a big garba function here in USA few years back. just as Hirak has written in one of his blogs The Little Voice- ISDA diwali show how ...indians here in US stand out as an unruly unorganised lot. i think its just the environment which has shaped us indians to be the way we behave when we are in a crowd... if people in this polite western world had to deal with the kind of mad urban rush can you imagine what kind of crazy situation it may turn out to be... our unruly indian crowd would have put them to shame i think.

p.s. that $29 DVD on SPECIAL sale at walmart can work only if you have bought a $20 cable !

miserable failure

2003-12-09T23:37:00.000-05:00
type in "miserable failure" on google and...
then click on "i m feeling lucky" tab
and see the answer.

Or
just click here MISERABLE FAILURE and it will take you to the site.

and then if you want to know the scoop .... read up on the following link:
NY times

All for that $1 gum

2003-09-28T13:19:00.000-04:00
8 p.m.. saturday with nothing better to do i am watching "Remember the Titans" on ABC, an interesting Denzel Washington movie about how an African American football coach leads a high school team to victory amidst racial tensions with inspirational leadership and lessons for team effort. Having watched this movie before i was not sure i was going to enjoy it as much. Especially the thought of the stupid commercials in between made me all skeptical. But, i was wrong. The movie is so inspirational.It may sound cliched at times but its a very humane and moving story. Isn't entertainment supposed to make you feel good too? just silly mindless humor is rarely so much an entertainment. given a choice would i not watch titans rather than american pie?

so there i plonked on my futon with my dinner plate to catch the movie. it was touted by ABC as a season premier movie. So i suspect there was even greater load of commericials. So every little while i get interrupted with commercials... well, Walmart, Accord, Chevy, Verizon etc ... i think those ads make sense. These are big companies with millions and millions in revenue ...but i started wondering about ads like drano gel, electro sol gel detergent and dentyne fire! Dentyne fire what is that doing here??? The pack of $1 dentyne which i may add to my cart while waiting in the check out counter line without giving it a penny of thought, this company spent about a million-dollars to sell me the idea that i do need a dentyne to " fire" up my dinner date ?????

as they say if you can't beat them join them so during the commercials i started writing this blog. few minutes of google search and it turns out that this Dentyne fire commercial was the "big launch attempt by the manufacturer Cadbury Adams, US division of the giant Cadbury Scweeps based in UK. when i read about Dentyne on this webpage it all started to make sense. This new sugar free gum launched with a mega commercial with a latest latino hot star Chayene .... all started to make sense. about 2 million pieces will be produced at the plant every day. no wonder the company can afford all this .... all for that $1 gum.... next time i am in the grocery store or gas station .....

Elementary, my dear Watson!

2003-09-23T00:32:00.000-04:00
The Lowest Price isn't Always Best, writes Jim Ostroff in an article advsing marketing and sales managers in a recent article on Kiplinger forecasts.com.

he says that Companies should price new goods based on their value to buyers, not according to handy formulas such as the cost of production plus a fixed markup. The sticker price should reflect the added value that buyers feel the product provides in helping them do something better, faster or cheaper or that offers a unique style or look.

i guess this explains why some times new products introduced in the market carry such a ridiculous high price. i belive one strategy to sell the latest “super duper NASA technology idgy midgy gadet or home appliance is to simply put an exorbitnat high priced for the first few weeks/ months. this just helps to “test the waters” . Then they monitor the sales data (no matter what the price, there is always someone who will buy the product) then later with some data mining and other staistical juglery i belive this big corporations decide the right price to market the product.

so next time you see a NEW NEW design of scotch tape $5 ,,, you know whats going on!!

Science and Faith

2003-09-23T00:00:00.000-04:00
the Dalai Lama was recently at MIT hosting a conference on “Investigating the Mind” at the neurobiology lab at this institute. he was reported to have said that “if i had had not been a monk i would have been an engineer”.

the article in "The Wall Street Journal", Scinece and Faith, describes how scientist are studying the meditation techniques followed by buddhist monks and they have found neural basis for the states of “compassion” .

i believe deep down science and faith are deeply interconnected. i do not think its a question whether you believe in GOD? its a question if you are ready to make the effort to know and experience that either Science or Faith, both paths eventually lead to the same destination....

comments anyone?

Aisa Bhi Hota Hai

2003-09-14T23:30:00.000-04:00
Sunday evening with nothing much to do ... i was whiling away my time listening to NPR program - On Point . I was listening to a show aired on Monday Sept. 1st. : Boys Backslide described on the NPR web page , this show was about the new gender gap. The introduction said : “From kindergarten to grad school, boys are becoming the second sex. What's at stake is more than academics. The tide is turning. Girls are tearing through the education system, leaving many boys behind in the dust. Now, girls are the big men on campus. Business Week magazine explores the phenomenon in its May 26th cover story "The New Gender Gap." It describes a new school order where girls rule and boys are becoming the second sex. And raises questions about the long-term societal impact when boys take a backrest to girls.”

I was logged on the On Point web page via the WiFi using my iBook . Just for kicks, I had it connected to the tv and so i was using the 27” TV screen as my interface. While saddened about the the gloomy news for “mankind”, my mind wandered off to another observation. Staring at the TV it suddenly dawns on me that i had a interesting little contraption here. I was listening to the RADIO using a COMPUTER with the audio coming thru TV

it's cool dude!!” , sssssweeeeeet , i shouted out trying to imitate Andrew Stanton the Finding Nemo director who has provided the voice for Crush the Turtle.
:) :)

Later in the evening i decide to go check out the new B&N store in the nearby mall. Yes, a book store is coming up in the mall!!! With the iBook under my arms i leave home excited about the new store. i thought i would sit down in the cafe to flaunt my iBook . Finally after years of envying the cool dudes in the cafe typing away to glory on their laptops i was going to finally get a chance to do the same.I was already making plans to write about the Radio-computer-Tv story for this blog. I get into the car and luckily CAR TALK is on, another of my NPR favorites. I have fun driving and listening to the program as usual.

It turns out that the B&N store is to open this coming wednesday so two more days to wait still. I finish my other chores and by the time i return back home its about nine at night. I walk up the stairs , reach my apt door and slide the key into the lock to open. The key won’t turn . “That’s weird” i tell myself. after a couple of tries i look up to check if i was at the right door. “201?, yes! ” awright ! ...... try again. No. The door , it just won’t budge... i tried for about 10 minutes and then finally gave up... i tried to look up the apt number on my cell phone to call the maintenance guys but the number is not in my list. so there i go ..i fish out the iBook form my bag... sitting outside the door , i log on to the net ...the wireless connection worked fine enough :) I googled the apt phone number and contacted the service. Then I sat down there out in the lobby, and started typing this crazy experiencefor this blog.

after 45 minutes and an additional call to the Maintaince service, the guy finally arrived.

its a bit embarrassing to revel that Joe, the maintenance guy came opened the door with a single turn of the same key that i was using, in exactly 2 seconds :). He said the lock had lost the alignment and he will come back to fix it next morning.

:) :) :)

this was my mundane sunday. ordinary and odd. or would you rather call it insane??

Driveway Moment

2003-09-12T23:04:00.000-04:00
NPR has on its web site refers to something called as "driveway moments" it is explained as follows:

What is a Driveway Moment ?
“Maybe it's happened to you as it has to countless others...
You're driving home, listening to a story on NPR. Suddenly, you find yourself in your driveway (or parking space or parking garage). Rather than turn the radio off, you stay in your car to hear the piece to the end. It's a Driveway Moment.”

while i was driving back from work today, listening to NPR as usual... i began musing about what i was reading the day before.....

In school i was taught atom is the smallest ‘indivisible’ part of matter and it is made of electrons, protons and neutrons ....that was 1980’s .....well it seems we have now advanced in our understanding of the world we live in...
Michael S. Turner, professor of astrophysics at the University of Chicago writes in world book encyclopedia that physicists have learned by peering ever deeper into the structure of atoms that the subatomic world does not end with protons, neutrons, and electrons. The fundamental building blocks of matter are six types of quarks, six types of leptons, and all of their antiparticles, governed by four known fundamental forces of nature. These are the electromagnetic force, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and gravity. Thus, a complex universe of its own exists within each atom--a universe that is still revealing its mysteries.

when you really think about it seems to me that eventually in its deepest sense everything around us, i.e. matter is nothing but a bundle of energy. energy all pervading and all encompassing... extrapolate on this chain of thought and you jump out of realm of physics and astrophysics into that of theology.

in the end Professor Turner concludes " When we view the galaxies, wheeling in their majesty amid the blackness of space, it seems incredible that they are made of the same basic stuff that we are. But such is the beauty and wonder of our universe that fewer than 100 kinds of atoms, together with four forces, can be used to construct a sea shell, a human being, or a spiral galaxy of 200 billion stars "

lost in thought while driving i kept on wondering - when Professor
Turner talks about beauty and wonder of our universe is he not really referring to GOD ???

lost in thought suddenly i realise i was in my driveway....

I think i exactly know what that is ... driveway moments.... i believe my entire driving is spent on such moments. Driving home listening to radio or lost in thoughts....i sometimes fail to conciously register my entire driving trip. as i reluctantly reached to turn out the radio and pick up my bag i realized i had forgotten to stop and buy milk ..... lost in profound non-essential thoughts of this universe ..i :) :) goofed on the petty essential needs of daily life.....

that’s me !

2003-09-07T22:22:00.000-04:00
apple

2003-09-07T22:03:00.000-04:00
e4 :

I am a big apple computer fan! switched to apple when the "switch" campaign was in full steam. I was one of the converts. I guess the visit to the apple store in one of the malls and then touching those awesome machines on display just sold me to the idea.
Its been about a year now. I have not yet come accross another friend, acquaintace or colleague who uses an apple computer. Kaput. Zero. No one i know. What more in proof would you need to call me an odd ball?

WELCOME to my world.

mus·ing (my???z?ng)
adj. Deep in thought; contemplative.
n. 1. Contemplation; meditation.
2. A product of contemplation; a thought. “an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections” (James Atlas).

p.s. i love my apple computer. to celebrate the 1st aniv. i brought home a little ibook to accompany my 17"iMac. which i had bought last year.