rantlust

Posted by anupcs on July 28th 2006 in Animals, Rants, Travel
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I have only ridden horses a few times in my life. Most of these were in my childhood. The most recent riding experience was in Shi Du in China (often mislabeled as the Guilin of the north). Fellow blogger kinnum and my wife were also present. We hired these dismal looking horses to ride for about thirty minutes.

The mounting was easy despite my short stature. With my boots ensconced in the stirrups, I awaited further instructions. There was nothing coming forth from the ancient looking Chinese woman holding the reins of my horse. I tried not to think of Superman and kept a brave face. Maybe the Er Guo Tou I had consumed before helped. (Did they have RUI — riding under influence — convictions in old times?) Soon we were off, with the horses being walked by the keepers. We took some photographs, exchanged smiles and idle chatter. The walk then turned into a trot and I felt like Kublai Khan surveying a battlefield. It was when the trot became a gallop that the comfort level dipped drastically. We galloped along… pitter-patter… pitter-patter. The hoofs went pitter and my balls went patter.
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Posted by anupcs on July 28th 2006 in Health & Fitness, Outdoors
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When out hiking in mountains, I normally tend to wear long sleeve shirts and trousers often inviting incredulous looks from the ignorant. It’s the sun, stupid, I want to yell out. Apart from the sun, appropriate clothing can also protect you from creepy-crawlies and poisonous plants. Though apparently not ticks.

This week, the WHO warned that about 60,000 people die annually from too much exposure to the sun. The majority of these are caused by skin cancer developed as a result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation. The effect of the UV rays are felt the most between 10am and 2pm which is when most hikers are out and about. If you are hiking in snowy areas, it’s all the more important to protect yourself as 80% of the light is reflected.

Like most people of darker skin tone, I also assumed until now, that I am safer from the sun than people with lighter skin tone. This myth has also been dispelled today by US researchers. While a darker skin does offer some protection from sunburn, it doesn’t protect you from melanoma. The pigment melanin present in dark skinned people, provides an SPF of 13. You need much more depending on where you are in the sun. A safer bet is to wear protective clothing especially if you are hiking.

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Posted by riyer on July 26th 2006 in Rants
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I don’t know where you stand on this issue, but I thought Mr Negroponte’s “One Laptop Per Child” idea was ass backwards in terms of priorities - when it comes to marketing to countries like India. I am no technology elitist and do believe in its power to transform society but I think the Indian govt made the right decision to decline purchasing them. It would have been unwise for the Indian Govt. to fork out millions of dollars on such a project and their preference to focus on the priority of paying for more teachers and classrooms is the right decisions.
That does not stop NGOs from procuring them and making them available as they see fit and I think that is the right model for the OLPC.

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Posted by anupcs on July 26th 2006 in Internet, Technology
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Google announced back in February that they are trying out a new email hosting service for your domain. They want to give small businesses and schools the option to use Gmail as the interface for their email accounts. I missed the announcement back then and had been forwarding all my domain emails to my Gmail account till now. After being alerted to this service (which cannot be found in the main Google site) by fellow blogger crewcut, I signed up for it.

The approval was quick and I’ve been using this service since then. The setup was simple and I only had to change the MX records for my domain with my ISP. Google provides detailed instructions on how to do this for some of the common ISPs. Some thoughts about this service…

Pros:

• Same clutter free interface as Gmail
• Up to 25 accounts (this might be different for different people depending on what you fill out on your application
• You can create multiple aliases pointing to other email accounts in your domain
• You can have a customized logo (useful for small businesses) in your email page instead of the Gmail logo
• A good admin interface for adding/deleting users etc.

Cons:

• Only 2048 MB storage for each email account unlike your Gmail account which grows over time. I don’t think this is a real problem as it’s unlikely that anyone is going to reach their 2 GB limit anytime soon
• No calendar per email account… only one per domain

Overall I am quite satisfied and I might transition the email hosting for the other domains that I own. If you would like to apply for your own domain, go here.

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Posted by anupcs on July 21st 2006 in Commercials, Humor, Video
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This is a few months old but it’s quite cool. Since we don’t have TV anymore, I have to rely on the Internet to see commercials. This Pepsi commercial stars SNL great Jimmy Fallon and Indie superstar Parker Posey.

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Posted by tafkap on July 20th 2006 in Celebrity, Movies, Music
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Before I begin, my taste in music sucks - so please no comments on that. There is this song called Ajooba (means amazing/wondrous) from a Hindi movie called Jeans that caught my fancy a few years ago (I believe this is based on some Tamil movie). In any case, I ran across a video of the same song the other day on youtube. I declare that even by Hindi movie standards, it ranks as the campiest thing I’ve seen. Not even Aishwarya Rai can save it. It features her and some ‘actor’ I don’t recognize gallivanting wondrous parts of the globe while professing their love. Enjoy!

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Posted by anupcs on July 18th 2006 in Blogs, India
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Whatever happened to freedom of the press in the world’s biggest democracy? The “democratic” government of India just banned a number of blog sites after the Mumbai bombings. This is ridiculous. As the world press is reporting most of the blogspot and typepad sites are banned now in India either advertently or inadvertently. No word on whether our little site is still banned. Are we trying to emulate China a tad too much?

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Posted by papi on July 16th 2006 in Crime, India, Politics
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By now, most of you must have heard about the series of bomb blasts that ripped through the suburban railway system of the Indian metropolis of Mumbai, on the evening of July 11. Seven blasts in all, precisely timed to go off within minutes of each other, which left over 180 people dead and injured over 700 others. The people of India have been dealing with the insidious effects of terrorism for several decades, but the scope and sophistication of the latest attacks left even the most hardened of cynics struggling to come to grips with it. The media were quick to christen this India’s own 7/11, and are calling it a watershed event in the history of terrorism in the country.

I did what everyone does in such situations; called up friends who are in the affected city, and then tried to digest the enormity of the news. Living abroad, a sense of distance is inevitable, but after talking to several people in India, I could feel that the mood towards such acts of terror is changing. Beneath the surface shock and grief, there is a groundswell of anger.
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