Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Really?

Our President, Pratibha Patel is no where as dynamic as Mr.Abdul Kalam. As a result, she is hardly seen or heard doing anything significant other than trying to ensure her family has a holiday every time she goes on an "official" visit abroad.

Off late, our leader has been donning the newspaper for equally frivolous reasons. She is going into the record books for sitting inside a Sukhoi fighter jet. Really? Is this really so important? What the hell does this accomplish for anyone? Is anybody "proud" of her? Damn as hell I am not! She just wasted a shit-load of my taxpayers money.





I wonder why our leaders are still stuck doing these kind of cheap gimmicks even in this time and age!

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Genius!

I happened to read this article and view the video just a few minutes back and it just blew me away! Here is the wiki-link for the more interested folks.

A prototype device of $350 and you have further integrated the two worlds we live in today! This invention has the potential to be the next killer technology wave and when commodotized, it will be available to the common man at a price which will pressure M$ into thinking differently on their surface computing plans. Lets hope and pray for all the philanthropic dreams of Pravav Mistry to also come true!

Saturday, November 21, 2009

...make it even better!

The football world cup is round the corner and there are a few final slots to be booked yet. One of them was going to Ireland or France. I didnt see the match live but heard so much about it that I had to see the videos on youtube. All the talk was about how Henry, the captain of the French national team used his hand quite deliberately to control the ball before passing it to gallas to score the all crucial goal.



As shocking as this was for Ireland, it really isn't shocking that incidents like this go unnoticed on a football field. Most sports today use technology, some more than others, to keep the game fair and controversy free. Will technology ensure zero controversy? Of course not, but it will dramatically reduce the number of absolute insults to the game. During football discussions at office and we have some very passionate discussions, I have heard of how the intervention of technology will slow down the game. Well, my counter argument to that is, the number of fake injuries, dives and unsporting conduct already eat a lot more time than technology could. And once the players know that the cameras all over the place are tracking not just their deft footwork but also their deft fakework, and foulwork, the number of actual minutes of "football" will only increase. There is another argument which says that technology will kill the charm of the game. While this could be true in a very minuscule manner, the way the game gets played these days, there is more cheating skills on display than football skills. And there is no charm in cheating!

Another way to look at this would be, these kind of controversies keep us talking about the game longer and this only helps the game get more popular. :-)

Friday, November 20, 2009

Pushing it...

Google is at it... again. We were today welcomed to watch the first glimpses of the Google Chrome OS or simply Chrome OS.



I have used the Chrome browser on and off. It is quick, it is more secure, it is not as customizable as firefox (yet), but in my experience it does hog a lot of memory incrementally. But none the less, it is a good attempt at a browser with certain clear innovations.

Now, the Chrome OS seems to be pushing the envelope even more considering the paradigm shift that we are expected to take compared to our regular OS use. This is probably the reason why they are releasing it more for the smart phones and netbook market rather than make it mainstream. The one thing about Chrome OS which sucks (at least for us poor souls in India) is that the whole OS is built on the assumption that you have a super fast net connection, which in India costs a bomb.

Anyway, we can be spectators watching the spectacle unfold and waiting for when our ISPs can offer us world class broadband at world beating price (like the telecom industry has). :-)