http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
(Click on the picture to go to the Picasa album with larger images.)
I got a master’s degree in computer science from Rutgers University. Visiting Rutgers was a trip down memory lane. Mega dozes doses of nostalgia.
Google says it is building the Indic web. Now they support transliteration in 5 languages — Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. I checked out their automatic English to Hindi translation. I typed “What is your name” and got back “kya aapkay naam” — not terribly impressive.
Someecards are funny. I like the way they put a tiny label on top of the ads. The top banner ad says “Some advertising” and the side banner ad “Some more advertising.” And at the bottom of the page:
Someecards.com is possibly to probably the best site on the Web for free, funny ecards. We have greeting cards for every occasion – from important to utterly pointless. Send greetings for apology, birthday, baby, breakup, congratulations, encouragement, farewell, flirting, friendship, get well, sympathy, thanks, thinking of you, wedding, workplace, and holidays like Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. We suggest you e-mail them to friends, family, coworkers, loved ones, liked ones, and anyone else with fingers.
How much would you spend on your home if your net worth was estimated by Forbes a few months ago to be around $43 billion? If you were Mukesh Ambani, you would spend a couple of billion dollars on a place you’d like to call home. Sounds reasonable to me. For most people, their home is the most valuable possession, often accounting for a very significant portion of their net wealth. Mukesh Ambani is spending a very small — almost insignificant — part of this wealth in building a home.
Continue reading “Mr Ambani’s Home”
Ramesh Menon’s article “India’s Talent Crunch” in DNA makes shocking reading but is news only if one has not been in touch with the reality of the desperate situation that employers face in India in their search for employable people. Continue reading “India’s Desperate Talent Search”
A few pictures from Chicago. I was there 30th April — May 3rd.
http://picasaweb.google.com/s/c/bin/slideshow.swf
Mouse-over the picture to see the controls. Clicking on the second icon from the left at the bottom shows the picture captions. Note especially the Art Institute of Chicago building where Swami Vivekanand gave his famous talk in 1893. What looks like a huge drop of mercury is The Cloud Gate:
Cloud Gate is British artist Anish Kapoor’s first public outdoor work installed in the United States. The 110-ton elliptical sculpture is forged of a seamless series of highly polished stainless steel plates, which reflect the city’s famous skyline and the clouds above. A 12-foot-high arch provides a “gate” to the concave chamber beneath the sculpture, inviting visitors to touch its mirror-like surface and see their image reflected back from a variety of perspectives.
It is easy to argue that energy is the binding constraint that faces all of humanity, not just the developing economies. Of course, given the projected increase in demand and the decline in the supply of fossil fuel energy, the price of energy will continue to move up–with predictable adverse effects on the growth prospects of the emerging economies.
Continue reading “Solar or Nuclear: Which is the better option for India?”
Hi all from JP’s place.
No sooner do I arrive in Edison, NJ that the NY Times calls it a place where Indians (now New Jerseyans) thrive. [Hat tip: Maria]
Oak Tree Road [in Edison, NJ], which runs through this sprawling town of 100,000 people and into neighboring Woodbridge Township, may be America’s liveliest Little India, with 400 Indian businesses that attract Indian immigrants from across the region. But the impact is more than just commercial. Indians make up from 20 to 25 percent of the population, and they have spearheaded the transformation of Edison — an overwhelmingly blue-collar and middle-class white community a generation ago — into a town with a decidedly Asian flavor.
Edison is next door to New Brunswick where my old alma mater Rutgers is located. On Saturday afternoon I drove briefly through Rutgers. Those were the days my friend, we thought would never end . . .
The weather is cold and rainy.
So that’s the story. I am alive though not totally well. I got a bad stomach ailment and was laid up most of Sunday and today. I hope to get well enough to travel to Chicago tomorrow. More later.
Go. Profit from exile. To see, listen, walk, pause beside wisemen; question savages and madmen; and listen to stories. It is always pleasant and, sometimes, improves you.
— Jean C. Carriere in his play based on the Indian epic The Mahabharata.
Did you know that 2009 is the International Year of Astronomy? It will be 400 years since Galileo Galilei, the starry messenger, demonstrated his telescope to the world (actually, Venetian politicians) in August 1609. To commemorate that event, IAU and UNESCO are going to release a movie.
The vision of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 is to help the citizens of the world rediscover their place in the Universe through the day- and night time sky, and thereby engage a personal sense of wonder and discovery. All humans should realize the impact of astronomy and basic sciences on our daily lives, and understand better how scientific knowledge can contribute to a more equitable and peaceful society.
Go watch the trailer on YouTube. Or better still, download one of the many high resolution versions from here.
Totally thrilling stuff.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 