Ramblings

This is massive news at least for the folks who had started wondering if Google had crossed over to the other side. Google takes a new approach to China business   We would need to wait and watch for the events to unfold and see how the Chinese government reacts to this. Wonder if Indian companies too will take such a stand in the near future and refuse to do business with authorities who are corrupt in nature.

Best of Luck to TCP on his new project :-) Friends for a longer life :-) (via. nanopolitan ) Read Sunil Gavaskar's interview by Wharton.  (via. Churumuri ) Malcolm Gladwell on David beating Goliath . A bit long but a good read. Portrait of Prabhakaran . Its from the Sri Lanka's propaganda machine but some of the photos are quite interesting. Microsoft's Reply to Grassley on H1-B Visa . Larry Page's University of Michigan Commencement Address.

While voting for the Lok Sabha elections, the age old question arises. Should one vote for the candidate or for the party? This was my second chance to vote in the Lok Sabha elections. I definitely knew who the better candidate was in my constituency; no doubt about it but surely, I did not want his party to form the government. So, for the first time I went against my better judgement and have voted against a party rather than voting for a party/candidate. I never knew that I had such strong views about who should form or not form the government but I guess life is all about discovering oneself each day :-) ========================================================= The IPL season is underway and this time, the cup is anyone's game unlike last year where Chennai and Rajasthan were the two best teams. This year, all the teams are pretty evenly matched and the final four can be anyone. Hopefully, Mumbai Indians lift the cup this time :-) My choice of final four would be Mumbai...

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

Saw a movie in a theatre after a long time. Firaaq is a good movie and it was nice to see that movies on current topics are being made by the Hindi film industry. Firaaq is set after one month of the riots that happened in Gujarat and maps the stories of people belonging to different strata of the society who were affected by riots. Also, the cast of movie is top rate but then that is expected where the names include Paresh Rawal, Naseerudin Shah, Deepti Naval. The supporting cast also was pretty good. Sahana Goswami stood out in Rock On and here, she further gives proof that she should be seen in more movies. Loved Amruta Subhash too (yeah, I know her; I did tolerate her Marathi serial for quite a long time). Sanjay Suri as a part of the upper class who gets away most of the time because of his name and Hindu wife (Tisca Chopra) was pretty good too. The strong point in the movie was the subtlety. There was always a specter of violence looming ahead but one never actually gets to ...

Trickle Up Innovation. Interesting read. Thank the government for the inflation. Purple Pitara pens some thoughts which she hoped she would have heard when she was given a send off from her school. (Link via. Neelakantan ) Gaurav's translation of Pu La over here. Pratam Bhanu Mehta's article on the Telegraph incident which was completely ignored by the media. Annie blogs about it here . Kindness of Strangers. Hillarious!

Check out the below link from Dawn. Really funnay and scary. Replace Pakistan with India and you can recreate a similar conversation. Naked Lunch : Nadeem F. Paracha

When the Nazis came for the communists, I remained silent; I was not a communist. When they locked up the social democrats, I remained silent; I was not a social democrat. When they came for the trade unionists, I did not speak out; I was not a trade unionist. When they came for the Jews, I remained silent; I was not a Jew. When they came for me, there was no one left to speak out.

Hawkeye has a wonderful post on sleep. Do check it over here . I am a devotee of Goddess Sleep, so I had to link to this one :-) Cheers, HP

"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love." - Neil Gaiman

Am I glad that all the experiments related to LHC are being carried out now and not some 20/30 years back. This means that the future generation will sweat over the diagrams and describing the experiment in their exams and not moi :-) Some links related to LHC are below. Boston's Big Picture ( Do check out Boston's big picture series. Some amazing photos there) Wikipedia-The eternal source of knowledge Link 3 

Boston has some wonderful pictures from around the world capturing the spirit of Ramadan. Do have a dekho here .  Festivals, food and music are a few things which make me put up with religion :-) A nice post on Lehman for layman.  I want this.   Some useful Javascript techniques can be found over here . An article on one of the most influential person in the media.  The economist asks if there is a future in investment banking.  Roger Ebert on why he gives out more stars than other critics.

Hopefully the tag of perennial underachievers will not be associated with Spain any more . They were the better team on the park today and were the deserving champions. A great way to end the football season. Now looking forward for the next season to start so that Chelsea lifts each trophy in sight :-) Cheers, HP

Rajdeep Sardesai writes a good post about the growing animosity between the leaders of Indian political parties . Surely, we should all have the ability to agree to disagree. :-) Some of the life's little mysteries explained by Daily Mail. (Link via. Smoke Signals ) Kamla Bhatt interviews Karthik Srinivasan of itwofs fame. Do check out the itwofs site. Check out the photo essay on Wired which discusses the places where some of the pioneers had their Eureka moments. (Link via. Scripting News ) A real good letter by Richard Feynman to his student letting him know as to what are really the important and worthwhile problems. Reading this letter reminds me to get Feynman's book back from my friend and read it once again. His is the only book that made me take any interest in pure science, specially Physics :-) Krishna Kumar lists out the different types of workaholics . Check out Rupashree Nanda’s moving acceptance speech as she received this year’s Chameli Devi Award. Vivek...

A Really Nice video of Pakistani artists coming together to see that Islam does not get hijacked by the radicals. (Link Via. Sepiamutiny ) More details about the song can be found over here . Also, a news link about a Palestinian educator whose stint in an Israeli jail inspired him to devise a different approach to teaching history. That was his real education. While awaiting charges, Adwan overheard two Israeli soldiers arguing over whether he should be made to sign a document in Hebrew that he couldn’t read. Shocked to hear one of his enemies defending his rights, Adwan decided that he had some things to learn about the Jewish nation. So much of the gulf in understanding that plagues the Middle East has to do with the willful disregard for the other’s point of view. Israelis refer to the 1948 conflict that gave birth to their nation as the War of Independence; Palestinians know it as the Nakba, or Catastrophe. What Israelis call “the riots of 1920"—when Palestinians attacked Jew...

IT'S IN THE BLOOD Cheers, HP Related Reading : http://bluechampions.com/its-in-the-blood/

Will any Economics Student please explain me as to how the above is possible? I know Conditions Apply and all but still... Cheers, HP

There is only one God. Please bow to thee! Cheers, HP

Saw Sivaji today. Well, I don't understand much of Tamil but loved a major portion of the film. Rajni as usual is superb. Shriya is enchanting, totally enchanting :-) And, the rest of the technical department is also pretty good. Yes, the film is over-hyped but a Rajni film coming after a gap of 2 years was going to be hyped. And, Rajni doesn't disappoint. He does not look and act like a 60 year old guy. Truly, a Superstar!!! ----------------------------------------xxxxxxxxx--------------------------------------- Links for the day. Enjoy this one ------ http://www.mizpee.com :-) Beautiful Postcards...Really too good ------ http://valmays.homestead.com/index.html [ Link via. Selma Mirza ] Cheers,

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. -Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893) Cheers, HP