Sergey Brin on Google, Search and Life

Sardarji Singing Marathi Song (The Taste Of India)

A Superhit From Youtube

Bill Clinton Show

How Bestsellers Are Borne? A Tale of Noam Chomsky

Septuagenarian linguist and the most intelligent man on earth today according to some, Noam Chomsky would be thanking Hugo Chavez from bottom of his heart. Noam Chomsky's book 'Hegemony Or Survival' shot up from dust of obscurity, when the Venezuelan prez, Chavez held the book near his heart at the UN summit and mentioned it in his speech while attacking Bush policies. The book had been on stands since 2004 but never enjoyed such a curiosity and success as it is doing after Chavez's mention.

Noam Chomsky argues in the book that the US policy about Afghanistan and Iraq is not really a shift after 9/11. On the contrary, War On Terror, occupation of Iraq and control of Afghanistan are nothing but continuation of US foreign policy which is a policy of hegemony. USA maintains this hegemony through war, funding tyrants (USA funded even Saddam- see adjacent modified carricated picture of Rumsfeld holding hand with Saddam) .



It is not a secret how USA nurtured Taliban to counter the USSR control over Afghanistan. Nurturing monsters to fight monsters and then creating and nurturing new monsters to fight older ones has been the tale of US policy throughout after WW II. This is what Noam Chomsky tries to convey through his book. (I wonder why doesn't somebody teach USA simple management lessons?)

Want to make your book bestseller? Bring in Chavez.

Sharing Bed? Or Building Sleep?

An interesting study on sharing bed for sleeping is doing rounds currently. Published originally in nytimes.com, this study points to an interesting aspect of sleep or more of a relationship, namely sharing bed during sleep.

Sharing bed for sleeping can be a very uncomfortable job - snatching for the sheet (it goes on for night), sleep breaks, feet on your face and all such things means that you can't have a best sleep. You could have it if you sleep alone.

Interesting thing, however, is that those who share beds for sleeping prefer sleeping together rather than alone, howsoever uncomfortable that sleep is. This is seemingly obvious aspect but is interestingly unnoticed by many who share bed.

What can be reason? I would put intimacy at a much lower rank in the list of reasons. Because I would not sacrifice my sleep of 7 hours for an intimacy which is not much helpful after I sleep off.

Rather it may be feeling of security which we as a species inherited from our ancestors in the jungle. It is on the bed that I forget all other worries; I talk with my partner all my thoughts which I keep back in my mind for whole day. I kind of feel a support in it. If we look at other animals, we will notice the same thing. Sleeping (or sharing bed if that pleases Western minds. I wonder, why 'Sleeping' in English language would also mean having sex? Do they never 'sleep' - mean take a 7-8 hour nap?) (sleeping) in groups is the basic instinct of all gregarious animals, to which we human being also belong. Notice the dog in last frame of picture above. Funny.
It is nice observation (at the most). (I would hate to call it a study.)

MSN Soapbox (Microsoft's Youtube) Is Coming

After taking long (as usual) to gauge the success of Web 2.0 services, like Google Video, Yahoo Video and Youtube, Microsoft is at last coming up with their version of Youtube-MSN Soapbox. Soapbox will function on same lines as of Google Video, Yahoo Video and Youtube and will be thus meant to be a 'Social' Web service. Currently the test version is out for Invitees only and the MSN Soapbox Beta is supposed to be out in coming days.

Those who have tested it have opined it to be similar to Youtube with 100mb upload limit etc. Major curiosity was about the video format on Soapbox. Whether Soapbox is going to use Windows Media Player format or .flv- the flash movie format. It seems that .flv will not be an in thing for MSN Soapbox.

Late entry into the video hosting segment means that Microsoft will have to be content on a low customer base. This is mainly because we will have to wait for a while for other mashing applications to develop around MSN Soapbox. For instance you will find so many services like Kipvid which evolved around Youtube and Google Video. Somebody should tell the folks in Seattle that online audience hates to wait this much when so many equally able competitors are around.

Lone Ranger Theme Song

Lone Ranger Theme Song

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Watch that's Coool.....
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What I Didn't Do At BlogCamp.

BlogCamp.In the grand gala of intelligent and blogging minds ended in Chennai in 9th and 10th. Before going there, I had formulated some objectives for myself. Most important thing on my mind was 'whether this unconference is going to be neo-hippyism?' Informality, participation than speeches, 2 feet rule- it interested me to see if all this actually didn't mean Indiscipline (or Indiscipline 2.0!). Dear friends, though there were some issues relating to the chaos about sessions, it was through and through paisa vasool for a person like me who travelled there all the way from Pune. Many a persons tried and did beat their own drums there (e.g. I didn't understand why there was a session about SEM in Blogcamp? or Why Sulekha.com was propping up again and again on various occasions? I never heard about Ford or Yahoo except at right places- these were official sponsors.). There were also some people who walked in the hall like a police-man talking loudly and silencing some sane voices.

If this was the situation, then where did I get my payback? It was (unfortunate for an Unconference but-) on a cup of coffee. I got networked to a good number of people and relations with whom, I hope, will go beyond profession.

A session on podcasting by Kiruba, Ram and Kaushik and all those who attended it was the best. It just evolved. I am sure that the session chartered a totally unplanned path for these wonderful guys. A novice to writing a blog (not blogging!), I was immensely benefited from their tips on podcasting.

Other persons which interested me there were Amit Agarwal and Dina Mehta. It was a sad thing that I could not actually caught up with Amit. But hey there will always be the next BlogCamp.

I was a bit surprised at this social gathering about a curious phenomenon. The girls you know! Look at these girls- Dina and Neha-hogging the center-stage and active in each activity. I was wondering about my own observation that the girls today are more active and open and free, especially at such social gatherings. Is it just a feeling of mine? It may be the confidence oozing out from beauty the girls would always have. I wonder. I wanted to discuss this issue with Dina but except on blogging and gender issues, I didn't talked to her.

One more thing I wanted to hear about was somebody writing on Recipes. Personaly I would have loved to hear from some of these blogger cooks. But alas! None was there as per my knowledge.

All this and a visit to Mahabalipuram- I didn't do at BlogCamp.

BlogCamp!

The unconference,which I am waiting for eagerly is just 4 days away now. I am excited and eager to be in Chennai.
I registered for it and man! today the registrations are 'Sold Out'! I escaped by whiskers.
Now there is still issue of booking of Chennai bound train. Hope I could get one through our travel agent.
Main purpose there will be networking and finding answers to some questions.
Let's see how it goes.

Ajax- Web 2.0 cornerstone

In very simple words, Ajax is a set of technologies, which allow Asynchronous loading of content in the browser window of end user. When the user does some modisications on the webpage, the page need not be reloaded from server to reflect the changes.

Main benefits of Ajax are increased interactivity and increased user experience.

The word was coined in Feb 2005! By Jesse Garrett to describe the technologies for asynchronous loading.

 Here are some figures to explain Ajax:

 

A Visit From Chalky - 50's Educational Film Satire

A Visit From Chalky - 50's Educational Film Satire

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Education ...uh!
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