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My rants about general things

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Media losing grip again

November 12th, 2008 · No Comments

Here is an interesting news article. Everybody agrees that it is next to impossible to guess whether a movie will be successful or not. Here the media just proclaims that the movie will be a bigger success then another successful movie.

Aamir Khan’s ‘Ghajini’ is expected to set a record of sorts. While the promotion of the film kick-started during Diwali, the Indian distributors have decided to go that extra mile and ensure that the biggies rakes in big moolah when it opens during the Christmas week.

They claim that this is because of the fact that the movie is being released with a very large number of prints. If that were to be true, why doesn’t everybody just release a very large number of prints.

While ‘Singh Is King’ was released with 1,050 prints [physical and digital] in India,’Ghajini’ will have close to 1,200 prints in circulation in India alone.

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Another technology MNC

October 21st, 2008 · 1 Comment

Every time I visit a technology company, I have high hopes from them in the way they would be doing things smartly and probably setting an example on how to use technology. Here is another example of how wrong I am about that assumption.
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Now this really crappy mousetrap is lying in the company’s cafeteria for some weeks and I have not seen any mouse pay a visit to that. It seems mice are smarter then the company staff.

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No accountability in this country

October 21st, 2008 · No Comments

Here is a sad news.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Tuesday expressed grief and shock at the killing of a Bihari examinee, who died in the violence unleashed allegedly by MNS activists on North Indian candidates, and announced an ex-gratia of Rs 1.5 lakh for his family.

Now if I am correct a person being beaten to death should be counted as a murder and if it is a murder somebody should go to jail for it. It is the government’s job to find out who really did it.
But everybody is just talking.

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Iceland is all but bankrupt

October 10th, 2008 · No Comments

So the financial crisis 2008 has finally taken its toll on iceland. The country seems to have gone bankrupt.

“Iceland is bankrupt,” said Arsaell Valfells, a professor at the University of Iceland. “The Icelandic krona is history. The IMF has to come and rescue us.”

The world is getting scarier day by day.

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Types of drivers

September 26th, 2008 · No Comments

I have been driving four wheelers for around 10 years and I have observed multiple type of behaviours from other drivers on traffic signals. Here I am listing down multiple types of drivers that I have seen.

  • The most common variety of drivers that I have seen is the group of people who never stop at a traffic signal. The only way these people stop on signal if the car infront of them stops otherwise they will never been seen first at a red light.
  • The second variety is which will always stop at a signal (irrespective of it being red or green). They stop for a random amount of pre-defined time and drive on. They don’t care what is the colour of light. They think they have done their duty if they stopped for some time.
  • The third variety of the people who will never stop on their own and they will even honk if they are stuck behind somebody who “unfortunately” follows traffic rules.
  • An then their are auto drivers..

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Terrorism, a football for intellectuals

September 26th, 2008 · No Comments

We all agree that terrorism is bad and fighting it is extremely difficult. How does one save himself from somebody who is willing to die to kill you. Police are not really very credible in India but still they are the only defense that we have and to a large extent we will have to trust them.

SO here I read this article. Now the article concludes following.

A fact finding team which visited Jamia Nagar where the Delhi [Images] police killed two alleged terrorists linked to the Delhi serial blasts has stated that there is clear evidence to show that the bullets fired on Sajid’s head were from point blank range. The photographs after autopsy of Sajid, 17, show that there were seven gun shots to his head and it was from point blank range.

Here is the composition of the team.

The fact finding team comprised teachers, students, civil rights activists and intellectuals. The team comprised 14 persons which included, Professor Siddique Hassan, deputy amir, Jamat-e-Islami Hind, SAR Geelani, reader, Zakir Hussain College, Delhi University, Dr Karen Gabriel, reader, St. Stephens, Banojyotsna Lahiri (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Vanessa Chisti (JNU) and Sumati Panikkar (independent researcher) among others.

Please note that none of these guys are criminologists or experts in forensics. Shouldn’t these guys mind their own business. What is the purpose of doing such acts. If they don’t trust what is happening, they can approach courts and courts would order proper forensic analysis of what has happened.

If one sees the list of people in the so called committee of intellectuals, one of them is SAR Geelani, who was acquitted in parliament attack case. But the supreme court had this to say about him.

Geelani’s conduct at the time when Parliament was being attacked on December 13, 2001 was  ’disturbing’ to note and gave rise to ’serious suspicion’ about him, the bench said. It also took note of the ‘untruthful pleas raised by Geelani about his contacts with Shaukat and Afzal.’

Though it raised a finger of suspicion at the lecturer, the court was quick to add that suspicion alone, howsoever grave it might be, could not be the ground for the conviction of anyone.

I think these JNU types should just shut up. They are not aiding in fighting terrorism. They don’t speakup when an act of terror happens. What is their point of speaking now. May be if Delhi police is really on the right side of law, they should sue these people for character assasination.

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Another modest sportsperson

September 26th, 2008 · No Comments

Somehow modesty seems to be in such short supply now-a-days. See this from Hamilton.

“I have had a talent since I was very young and it was just a case of taking that talent and grabbing it with both hands and nurturing it and trying to do the very best job I can.”

Anyway, I don’t really like him. He may be a good racer but not a very good “hero”.

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Spoon counters strike again

September 19th, 2008 · 1 Comment

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Some time back I blogged about spoon counters.. They seem to be hard at work. Not only they have not stopped counting, they have still not learnt how to count it right.

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Stupid mainstream media (again)

September 10th, 2008 · No Comments

See this news item here which showed up in Indian Express just after Large Hadron Collider. Just to get a juicy headline, the news paper claims “prove rumours wrong”. Now, I don’t believe that the LHC experiment is going to end the world but the time has not come to say that rumours have been proven wrong. Today the beam was only shot in clockwise direction, then it would have to be fired anti-clockwise and only after that beams will be fired in both the directions for collision.
Only when collision happens, we can conclude that rumours have been proven wrong. Why don’t the news papers just stick to reporting, rather than making up news. 

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We are like that only

September 9th, 2008 · No Comments

Some people never learn. Here is an interesting news story that I saw in today’s news paper.

The CCTV footage showed how Bhatia manoeuvred to steal the wallet, trying to make sure that no one around noticed him while carrying out the act, official said.”First he waited for Mehta to proceed ahead. Then he looked around pretending to be browsing for a particular item in the shop. After a few minutes, he pulled out his own wallet and kept it above Mehta’s, only to pull them both into his bag immediately,” said a police official. “I had given up all hopes of getting the purse. The incident proves that thieves do roam about in suit and tie,” Mehta said.

Yes, thieves do roam about in suit and tie.

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