[.... As the rich and the well-heeled made preparations to ring in 2007 in style across a new, shining India, a sleepy, poor housing area - Nithari - almost ruined their party...this case illustrates best the most barbaric and basic truth about the Indian state. That it has failed the country's poor.
Nithari, in fact, is an example of how the poor and the weak have just no place in the Indian system.

Where else in the world could children be disappearing like they were in Nithari for more than a year without the police registering a case and investigating, even when the parents had alerted the police about their missing offspring?

Where else in the world would the courts have had to intervene just to ensure that the police did start investigations?

All Indians know the answer ....]

Sanjeev Srivastava — http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6255511.stm

This is a weird but true story (with a moral) …

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors:

“This is the second time I have written you, and I don’t blame you for not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we’ve eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It’s also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won’t start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I’m serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: ‘What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?’”

The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn’t start.

The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.

Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man’s car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc.

In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store.

Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out.

Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn’t start when it took less time. Once time became the problem — not the vanilla ice cream — the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.

The engineer made the necessary design changes and vapour lock dissipated quickly.

Moral: obvious is not always the solution and even insane looking problems are sometimes real.
Ref:

1. http://www.netscrap.com/netscrap_detail.cfm?scrap_id=501

2. http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~smann/IceCream/humor.html

3. http://in.rediff.com/money/2006/mar/14mba.htm

“Some of the best articles from Science Creative Quarterly by UBC”

A GAME THEORETIC APPROACH TO THE TOILET SEAT PROBLEM

[..Consider a bathroom with one omnipurpose toilet which is used for two toilet operations which we shall designate as #1 and #2. The toilet has an attachment which we shall refer to as the seat which may be in either of two positions which we shall designate as up and down.

Toilet operations are performed by members of the human species who fall into two categories, popularly designated as male and female. For convenience we shall use the name John to refer to the typical male and Marsha to refer to the typical female...]

HEY BABY! I THINK OUR INTERACTION FUNCTIONS WOULD MESH WELL. LET’S DATE

[..Well, you’ll be pleased to know that scientists at the University of Washington have claimed that after watching a couple interact for as little as 30 minutes, they have a 90% chance of predicting whether the relationship will last...]

MOTHER GOOSE AND THE SCIENTIFIC PEER REVIEW PROCESS

[...

First of all, we are not sure there’s enough clarity in this text. Scientific literature, in particular, should leave little room for confusion. Where exactly did Jack fall down? Into the well? A little ways down the hill? All the way down the hill? It’s just too vague. Worst still, we’re not convinced that the science conducted is of high enough caliber. I mean really, who would be stupid enough to put a well on the top of a hill? In conclusion, we feel that this manuscript should be rejected in its current state, but are not opposed to viewing a revised version in the near future..]

WHICH CAME FIRST??

[.. A chicken, by definition, is a bird hatched from a chicken egg. A chicken egg, by definition, is an egg laid by a chicken..]

Freedom of Racism… The cartoons
[..“Freedom of speech.” Noble right used to conduct racist activities among many other controversial activities...]

A Muslim speaks….
[..Here's what I don't get. Why are we (Muslims) wasting our resources and time on crap like this?

There's two parts to this issue. First is drawing an offensive picture of Muhammad PBUH. Second issue is the cartoons implying that Islam is a terrorist religion....]

An Agnostic..
[..Remember the anger of many Christians and Jews when Mel Gibson released The Last Temptation of Christ? Were there shootings? Were there kidnappings? Did anything get burned down? Did people march with banners equivalent to this?..]

The Reasons..
[..The row over the Danish cartoons would probably have remained a local dispute between some Muslims and a Danish newspaper had it not been for three factors:

* the rise of violent political Islam
* America's war on terror
* modern transnational media.

The row over the Danish cartoons is yet another dramatic illustration of the huge gap between secular liberal values in the West and the predominantly religious outlook of Middle Eastern societies...]

Who wouldn’t be angry??
[...Islam will not have you portray their Prophet, because the Qur'an happens to forbid it. There isn't much room for interpretation, as it is a basic rule that no people or animals are to be portrayed in any way. Sure, the rule isn't obeyed in every aspect. But when it comes to a symbol as sacred as the Prophet, it has to be, because when you touch something that fundamental, what's left of the religion? A picture of the Prophet in which not only himself, but his entire religion are mocked, man, that's gotta hurt. That's when people get really angry. And stupid angry people will do stupid, angry things.

The more sensitive muslims though, are not angry because we're not living by their rules. They don't expect us to. They're angry because we're mocking their entire system of beliefs, and really, who wouldn't be?..]

Whose surprised?
[..When a country refuses to apologize by a hateful statement and then other countries join to support it based on their support for "free speech", is it really surprising that people are angry? Free speech is a right which is necessary, but can also be problematic. The problems arise because there is always a debate between what is free speech and what is hate speech...]

Tomorrow’s Happiness Begins Today

Memories are to the mind what a mirror is to the eyes – a reflection. The mirror reflects the physical while our memories reflect the emotional. When you look in the mirror it reflects what you look like; when you look in your mind it reflects who you are. One big difference between the two is that you can change what you see in the mirror but you can’t change the memories reflected in your mind.

We tend to spend a lot of time trying to improve what we see in the mirror, but little or no effort trying to improve our thoughts.

Finding Happiness in Your Treasure Chest

Our thoughts are a reflection of who we are. Happy people have happy thoughts. That doesn’t mean that the happy person never has an unhappy thought, it means the happy person knows how to dump these unhappy thoughts and then forget about them.

If someone speaks of you and is not pleasant, or someone acts and is not nice to you, it is not a reflection of you but a reflection of them. If you want to be happy, take the time to sit and think about your thoughts. Put the good ones in your Treasure Chest or Hope Chest and the bad ones in your Dumpster Chest.

Happy people spend their effort adding to their Treasure and Hope chests while unhappy people spend their time sorting through the dumpster.

Stop Looking for Happiness in Your Neighbor’s Yard

Just because an elephant is the biggest doesn’t mean he’s the best animal in the jungle.
Sometimes look back at how far you’ve come instead of always looking ahead to where you want to be. When was the last time you patted yourself on the back for the things you have accomplished?

Trackback: Buddha in the Boardroom

Having a commons (publicly-owned property) sounds like a great idea, so why do stories about the commons – the ocean, rivers, and air – so often turn tragic? Why are so many species facing extinction? Why are so many resources being depleted?

The American buffalo, Asian tigers were hunted nearly to extinction. Why? No one owned them, so hunters had an incentive to kill as many as they could. Ranchers and farmers, on the other hand, own cattle. When was the last time you heard about the threat to cattle?

Economists Saying:
As any economist will tell you, people respond to incentives. If there’s a valuable resource lying about in a commons—picture a pizza at a party—people will try and grab as much of that resource as they can before the resource is depleted. This response is natural—it’s an example of people responding to incentives. In other words, in a zero-sum game, you need to “get while the getting is good”. The more other people get, the less there is for you.

Bunny Game or here
“The Tragedy of the Bunnies” is a simple game that illustrates the concept of “The Tragedy of the Commons.” Moral of the Game

Bloggers saying:

A
The tragedy of the commons can never be stopped as it is related very closely to survival of the fittest.

B
The tragedy of the commons is something that occurs in a society or community which conflicts with the common good.

IEEE Spectrum (Jan 2006)
The World Wide Web is also a commons but survival is ensured by some courtesy built into the protocol suite. Consider the transmission control protocol, TCP, used to send information across the Internet. Normally, this protocol increases the speed of data packets being sent by a computer until unacknowledged packets begin to accumulate, indicating the connection is getting congested. Then the computer that is sending the packets slows the speed of transmission to avoid clogging up the network.

Imagine if our cars acted like TCP. You’d be allowed to drive as fast as you wanted, as long as you didn’t interfere with others. As soon as your car detected that you were interfering with others, your speed would be automatically reduced, and you could build it back up only gradually. If everyone were subject to such a system, perhaps traffic would flow much better, and the roads would be more peaceable. However, we’d all hate it. Triumph over the tragedy surely comes with a cost..

Triump over the tragedy:
Tragedy of Commons as Hardin artistically puts it: “Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in freedom of the commons.”

But, the ascent of man from a primitive existence with no wealth accumulation to life as we know it is fundamentally a story about triumph over the tragedy of commons.

Our very existence as human beings is defined by evolved institutions for avoiding tragedies. We have names, which serve the economic purpose of identifying us as parties to contracts and agreements.

We have abstract symbols of ownership—deeds, titles, and contracts—that define spheres of autonomous behavior. We speak of our homes, our cars, our clothes, our families, and our pasture. Even language has evolved to provide a possessive form that accommodates triumph over the commons.

We write and observe contracts, wills, and marriage agreements that define relationships, identify turf, and conserve wealth. We accept evolved bodies of law and law-enforcement activities to assure the integrity of our agreements. We carry papers that enable us to acquire property, extinguish debt, cross borders, drive vehicles, and communicate effectively with strangers. And we have locks, keys, walls, fences, brands, and encryption devices, all this in an effort to avoid a tragedy of the commons.

The fight for survival continues….

Pirelli Relativity Challenge is an award for the best multimedia work that explains special relativity theory to the layperson, to mark the centenary of the publication of the Special Relativity Theory.

The Winning Entry: Al’s Relativistic Adventure Or here

Other Entries which are equally good and enlightening:
Putting Einstein to Test Or here

The Great Relativity Show

Relativity in 5 min

And the rare images of Einstein along with a color video of Einstein:
Footage of Einstein

Trackback: Physics Blog

That is what Web 2.0 is all about. The next generation of Web developers realize that it is the auction listings that make EBay so successful, the user reviews that are the unique value of Amazon.com. In Web 2.0, user is the partner in software development process.

A collective intelligence is achieved when a critical mass of participation is reached within a site or system, allowing the participants to act as a filter for what is valuable. The user reviews on Amazon.com sort out the worthy resources from the inadequate. Citysearch’s user-created reviews identify quality restaurants. In Google’s PageRank system, websites which are linked to more often hold more weight and rise to the top of search results pages. The folksonomy is an excellent example of the collective intelligence at work. Born out of the aggregate of user-created tags on sites such as del.icio.us and Flickr, a folksonomy provides an inclusive categorization scheme.

Web 2.0 is about community and collaboration through social software. The new generation Web offers a two-way communication with the user, one that involves both reading and writing.
Read the complete article, excellently written by Ellyssa Kroski @ The Hype and Hullaballo of Web 2.0

“Think of everything you do in your organisation and put it into three boxes: Managing the present (Box 1), selectively abandoning the past (Box 2) and creating the future (Box 3),” he says.

“Organisations spend a whole lot of time on Box 1 and assume it is strategy they are working on. Strategy, however, is really about Box 3. It is about allocating resources in 2006 to maintain leadership in 2020.”

Read More

India representative of Snamprogetti, a Milan-based Italian multinational company.

Swedish company Bofors — facing stiff international competition — had paid more than $50 million in bribes to secure a contract for the sale of field guns worth $1.4 billion to the Indian Army.

suspects include Rajiv Gandhi, Quatrochhi, an Indian arms agent called Win Chadha and Martin Ardbo, the Bofors chief.

WHO IS QUATROCHHI?