rantlust

Posted by riyer on October 31st 2005 in Society, USA
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There is an excellent story in the Boston Globe profiling a retirement community with a model markedly different from “move to Florida and wait to die”. However the thought of living exclusively among people of my own age still scares me.

For most first generation immigrants in the US, one of the norms that scares them the most is the thought of growing old here. I have talked to a few who, after more than 30 years in the US, have expressed the desire to move back to India soon, despite living close to their children and grandchildren. For the most part they fear the distance from their children and grand-children (despite their proximity) and dread the isolation that comes with it.

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Posted by tafkap on October 31st 2005 in Developing Nations, Finance, Humor
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Yes, King Win Laurel Limited; a Chinese company with a penchant for making ludicrous buyout offers has made a bid for Exxon, in an offer worth $450 billion. Previous bids by King Win Laurel for Telstra (Australia’s largest telephone company) and Restaurant Brands have been unsuccessful.

Amusing to say the least, but one day life may well imitate humor.

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Posted by tafkap on October 29th 2005 in Nature, Religion, Science
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While we have had multiple conversations on the environment and conservation, a poster recently turned the question around with regards to humans. Three statements of interest were: Are we special? Are we worth saving? Does it all matter? For those who eagerly await my profound answers, they are yes to the first two and ‘it doesn’t matter’ to the last one. Now you can skip the rest

Are we special?
I think it is self-evident that we are a pretty special species and will not bother enumerating the reasons. Are we superior to other species? As a general statement, no. In the things that we do well, yes and no for the others. Are we insignificant parts of this universe? Yes, but that does not make us less special.
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Posted by jcaldera on October 28th 2005 in Finance, Society, Technology
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The following is taken from www.sans.org, one of the most influential computer security organizations in the industry.

–Financial Institutions to Create Database of Employees Who Pose Security Risks
(26 October 2005)
US financial institutions are working together to establish a database of employees who are known to pose scam risks. People included in the database will be those who compromised customer data or “knowingly caused financial losses.”

[Editor's note (Schultz): This initiative will pay rich dividends to the financial institutions, but the implications for privacy and individual rights are truly frightening. A person whose name is entered into this database will for all practical purposes be "blackballed" throughout the financial industry, per the intention of this initiative. But what if an individual was falsely accused and then was fired anyway? There appears to be no appeal or review process for such an individual.]

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Posted by tafkap on October 28th 2005 in Random
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I hope I’m not the only guy who doesn’t know this, but is the woman depicted on the Rantlust banner supposed to be someone? Donaji perhaps?

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Posted by anupcs on October 28th 2005 in Humor, Society
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Being in an inter-ethnic relationship exposes you to incidents of culture shock (or amusement) every once in a while. Most of these cultural differences, you get used to after a while. And then there are some that continues to bewilder you even after years. This is the tale of such a difference.

One of the first things that struck me as very different between my culture (Indian) and my wife’s (Taiwanese) cultures was the sound of a barking dog. My wife has been insisting all these years that dogs bark as wang-wang (pronounced more like wong-wong) in Chinese or Taiwanese. Those of you who were taught in English would surely empathize with me for dismissing this as humbug.
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Posted by papi on October 27th 2005 in Engineering, Science
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Will this be the moment humanity looks back at and says, “What on earth were we thinking?”

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Posted by riyer on October 27th 2005 in Business, Developing Nations, Politics, Society, USA
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It is said that the typical cow in Europe, receives $2.20 a day in farm subsidies. Compare that with the fact that more than 1.2 billion people in this world make less than the average European cow. This is symbolic of the disparity caused by the farm subsidies and one of the biggest contributors to world poverty.

Since the Doha round (where gradual reduction in subsidies was agreed upon), the WTO is seen as the lever to mitigate some of the ills of world poverty resulting from subsidies. The EU along with Japan and the US are the leading offenders and among the Europeans the French are the worst offenders. While others including the US have agreed to discuss compromises, the French are downright wicked on this issue.
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