Quick Post: Too Much Technology, Simplify

Ping.fm, is service that lets you update several social networking profiles – Blogger, WordPress, Twitter, Pownce, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Orkut, gTalks, Yahoo messenger,  …..among many many others – from one place? It’s now in open beta, which means that everyone can sign up and try it out.

I have been using this for some time now, save me huge amount of time (2-3 hours a day) and 60 trips to each website. ‘Add More’ network has a huge list of other websites you may be part of.  Do try this.

What Makes Us Indians – Prelude

I know most of us will gasp at the title, I mean, you are probably thinking, “Is he going to write a lot of articles on the same title”…Hmm.. Actually Yes, but not only me you too. I have been reading Stuff White People Like for some time now. Then I read Brits Try To Muscle In On India’s Oscar Night! . Why don’t we create a text which makes us proud of ourselves. I know there are lot of things wrong with India, but as Indyeah , put it “this maybe cliched…but koi bhi desh perfect nahi hota usse perfect banan padta hai lets do our bit ..in what little way we can…”

Proposal: Lets make a “Open Source eBook” about “What Makes Us Indians, the missing reference“. We have some really great folks who write well and tell some spectacular stories! Lets make our stories count.  After the book is completed we can host it some where and ask folks to download it for free,  and request for donations which we can transfer to the any of the NGO’s.

I am safely assuming that we all are in this effort. So, let go to the comments section and start discussing the outline of the book.

How Happy I Am With My Job !

We All <3 Blogging, You All Are Here

Our design has made through the I <3 Blogging Design Contest .  My thought process behind the design was; What’s a blog without the community and comments. While thinking about the design, I came across the idea to put all the folks in blogging community who help each other explore ideas and solve problems. Due to space constrains I could only fit 100 . As we say in blogging, Revive Revolution, Speak Up, Tell Tales, Say Something, Protest, Entertain, Educate, Say Anything. It is a simple design which captures the essence of Blogging.  If you like this please do vote for me.  Thanks for the inspiration. BTW, we all are in the design.

Update: How to vote

• Please Click here and you will have to fill up a form. After which you can vote.
• If you have a facebook account. Just click on the FaceBook connect. After which you can vote.

Indian Nobel Prize Winners, Stuff which never makes the Media Headline

Here is a quick list of all (Most) the Indian, who have been awarded the Prestigious Nobel prize. Media will never discuss this, now, will they? This is in the series, of  few articles which i am writing so that we remember, its not all lost yet, there is hope still, some where. Suggestions and Ideas are welcome.

RABINDRANATH TAGORE – 1913

Nobel Prize for Literature

Popularly known as Gurudev , India ’s most famous writer and poet was awarded the Nobel Prize in recognition of his work Geetanjali, a collection of poems, in 1913. Tagore was also involved in
teaching. In 1901 he founded the famous Santiniketan which later came to be known as Vishwabharati University . DID YOU KNOW? Rabindranath Tagore is also the author of India ’s National Anthem.

CHANDRASHEKAR VENKATA RAMAN  – 1930

Nobel Prize for Physics

Born at Thiruvanaikkaval in Tamil Nadu, Raman studied at Presidency College , Madras. Later, he served as Professor of Physics at Calcutta University. C.V. Raman won the Nobel Prize for an important research in the field of optics (light). Raman had found that diffused light contained rays of other wavelengths-what is now popularly known as Raman Effect. His theory explains
why the frequency of light passing through a transparent medium changes.

HARGOBIND KHORANA -1968

The Nobel Prize for Medicine

Dr. Khorana was born in Raipur, Punjab (now in Pakistan ). He went abroad to get his doctorate in Chemistry and later settled there. It was his study of the human genetic code and the role it plays in protein synthesis that got him the Nobel Prize.

MOTHER TERESA – 1979

The Nobel Peace Prize

Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu at Skopje , now in Yugoslavia .. She wanted to become a nun and joined the Irish order of the Sisters of Loretto (at Dublin ) in 1928. It is as a nun that Agnes came Calcutta in 1929. Here she was extremely touched by the misery of the poor and the sick. She decided to dedicate her life to serving them. She then founded a group of
similar minded people called the Missionaries of Charity and set up Nirmal Hriday a center where she took care of the dying, the lepers and other people who had been left alone on
the streets of Calcutta to die. Today her group has centers all over the world.

SUBRAMANIAN CHANDRASHEKAR – 1983

The Nobel Prize for Physics

Dr S. Chandrashekar, is an Indian-born astrophysicist (a branch of astronomy or the study of space). After studying at the Presidency College in Madras , Dr. Chandrashekhar went to the United States for work and settled there. He has written many books on his field Astrophysics and Stellar Dynamics. He developed a theory on white dwarf stars forecasts the limit of mass that dwarf stars can have. This limit is known as the Chandrashekar Limit. His theory also explains the final stages of the evolution of stars.

DID YOU KNOW? Dr. Chandrashekar is the nephew of another Nobel Prize winner Sir C.V. Raman.

AMARTYA SEN – 1998

Nobel Prize for Economics

Prof. Amartya Sen is the first Asian to win the Economics Nobel. He is one of the most respected economics thinker in the world. He is also an excellent teacher. He won the Nobel for his work in the area of economic theory. Some of his most important work is in the areas of poverty, democracy, development and social welfare

Hindu extremists promote cow-urine soft-drink

The bovine brew is in the final stages of development by the Cow Protection Department of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), India’s biggest and oldest Hindu nationalist group, according to the man who makes it. Om Prakash, the head of the department, said the drink – called “gau jal”, or “cow water” – in Sanskrit was undergoing laboratory tests and would be launched “very soon, maybe by the end of this year”.

“Don’t worry, it won’t smell like urine and will be tasty too,” he told The Times from his headquarters in Hardwar, one of four holy cities on the River Ganges. “Its USP will be that it’s going to be very healthy. It won’t be like carbonated drinks and would be devoid of any toxins.” The drink is the latest attempt by the RSS – which was founded in 1925 and now claims eight million members – to cleanse India of foreign influence and promote its ideology of Hindutva, or Hindu-ness.

Source: BoingBoing

What happened to Innocence: Illustrations in a Children's Book

You have to wonder….did we read messed up books like this as a kid that only seem sick now that we know whats going on!

What happened to Innocence: Illustrations in a Children’s Book

You have to wonder….did we read messed up books like this as a kid that only seem sick now that we know whats going on!

Better Late Than…

A Primary School teacher had twenty-six children in her class.  She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb.  It’s hard to believe these were actually done by Primary School children. Their insight may surprise you.  While reading, keep in mind that these are 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

Don’t change horses	until they stop running.
Strike while the	wasp is close.
It’s always darkest before	Daylight Saving Time..
Never underestimate the power of	termites.
You can lead a horse to water but	How?
Don’t bite the hand that	looks dirty.
No news is	impossible
A miss is as good as a	Mr.
You can’t teach an old dog new	Maths
If you lie down with dogs, you’ll	stink in the morning..
Love all, trust	me.
The pen is mightier than the	pigs.
An idle mind is	the best way to relax
Where there’s smoke there’s	pollution.
Happy the bride who	gets all the presents.
A penny saved is	waste of time.
Two’s company, three’s	the Musketeers.
Don’t put off till tomorrow what	you put on to go to bed.
Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and	You have to blow your nose..
There are none so blind as	Stevie Wonder .
Children should be seen and not	spanked or grounded.
If at first you don’t succeed	get new batteries.
You get out of something only what you	See in the picture on the box
When the blind lead the blind	get out of the way.
A bird in the hand	is going to poop on you.
Better late than	Pregnant

Source: SMC

♥ Wikipedia, take it home, with WikiTaxi

WikiTaxi enables you to read, search, and browse Wikipedia offline. No Internet connection is needed, all pages are stored in a WikiTaxi database. Because Wikipedia is constantly growing, WikiTaxi uses compression to make sure that the database stays reasonably small. The huge English Wikipedia easily fits on a 8 GB memory stick.

This is currently windows only.You can use the import tool to suck in the file and specify its file name. If properly imported, WikiTaxi will display a random page when you reopen the application and you can then browse to any page of your choosing. WikiTaxi supports wildcard searches, AND and OR searches, and more, and is ideal for browsing on a large USB drive. WikiTaxi is a free download for Windows only.

Download [Only 1.63MB ]

From the many Wikipedia backups available, you need to download just one file, the called XML dump. Here are some direct links to the more popular links:

• Simple English (simplewiki), small download, less than 25 MB, excellent for your first WikiTaxi import and testing.
• English (enwiki), huge download, more than 3.5 GB.
• German (dewiki), large download, more than 1.1 GB.
• Frensh (frwiki), medium download, less than 1 GB.
• Polish (plwiki), smaller download, less than 400 MB.
• Dumps for all Wikis, in different languages and sizes.

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