rantlust

Posted by anupcs on October 31st 2006 in India
::  [Print This Post]

As some of you may know already, the city made famous by the tech boom in India, Bangalore, is going to have a new name: Bengaluru. The official announcement is due tomorrow though it will be some time before the government starts spending the large amount of money required to change the official stationery, road signs, organization names, etc. The airport three letter code (BLR) will remain the same.

Bengaluru is an approximation of the local name “Benda Kaal Ooru” (City of boiled beans!). The new name was first proposed by Kannada writer U R Ananthamurthy. Bangalore is just the latest city in India to revert to Indian-ized names. In the last ten years, Bombay became Mumbai, Madras became Chennai, Pondicherry became Puducherri, Trivandrum became Thiruvananthapuram, and Calcutta became Kolkatta.

While it’s good to retain the “Indianness” in the names, I do think this is a huge waste of money and resources that should be better spent on say, solving the dog problem in Bangalore. Besides, you don’t have to “officially” change the name. Both the English and local names can co-exist like in many other places in the world.

Comments(4)

Posted by tafkap on October 30th 2006 in Rants
::  [Print This Post]

I was quite surprised by something I heard on This American Life. This was something that the show’s host, Ira Glass discovered during the course of doing a story on rabies and he felt he should share it with his listeners as a public service announcement.

Supposedly, you can be bitten by a bat in your sleep without knowing that you’ve been bitten and with no visible marks of a bite. So if you see someone asleep in a room with a bat, you ought to seek medical attention and if possible capture the bat for testing. Apparently there have been cases of children dying of rabies after having been bitten by bats in their sleep.

Also, you must take a rabies vaccine within 72 hours of being bitten if you want it to have any effect.

Comments(15)

Posted by tafkap on October 29th 2006 in Technology
::  [Print This Post]

You are perhaps familiar with the adage

If you have one watch you’re not sure if you have the right time, if you have two watches you’re sure you have the wrong time

Well, something like that. It has been a few months since I bought an ‘atomic’ watch that synchronizes itself with the atomic clock in Colorado. Occasionally, being on the eastern edges of the clock’s RF transmissions, my watch fails in its daily synchronization attempts, but other than that, I have been living in a world safe in the knowledge that I know exactly what the time is.
(Read more…)

Comments(4)

Posted by papi on October 27th 2006 in Commercials, Journalism, Music, Politics, Rants
::  [Print This Post]

Apparently, the ad contains ‘disparaging’ remarks about Bush. Aw, come on, who could say anything disparaging about him??

When that idiot Borat goes around doing his ridiculous stunts about Kazhakstan, and the people of that country are appalled and angry, the American media treats it as quaint and funny, deserving wall to wall coverage. But someone makes a comment about the warp president, and suddenly it ain’t funny any more.

Comments(2)

Posted by crewcut on October 26th 2006 in Branding, Business, Law, Rants
::  [Print This Post]

Google is getting touchy about how people are using “google” as a verb. It’s okay to say that you googled for something if you actually used Google but they don’t want you googling for information elsewhere.

From the way the post liberally uses the word “lawyer” it looks like they are quite serious about not letting the brand go the Xerox way.

Wake up lawyers, is there anything you can really do to stop this?

Comments(1)

Posted by anupcs on October 25th 2006 in Video
::  [Print This Post]

Youtube is sooo passé especially after the acquisition. Let’s turn our attention to some of the alternatives. Especially the niche ones focusing on specific areas. We have mentioned the porn equivalent, pornotube.com (not safe at work) before. The Wall Street Journal today has an article on sites focusing on howto videos (similar to the text equivalents wikihow.com and ehow.com). The most prominent one is Video Jug. Among their most popular howto videos is “How to kiss passionately:”

There are many other interesting videos there for the clueless amongst us. Another howto video site is viewdo.com.

Some of the other (user generated) video sharing sites out there include Your Daily Media, Humping Frog (may not be safe at work), That Video Site, SmitHappens, and I-Am-Bored. If you know of any other cool sites, let us know.

Comments(0)

Posted by tafkap on October 24th 2006 in Internet, Parenting, USA
::  [Print This Post]

Did you know that the NSA’s website has a section devoted for kids? Lovable characters and their skills include:

• Crypto Cat - Cryptography
• Decipher Dog - Cryptanalysis
• Joules - Engineering
• Slate - Mathematics
• T. Top - Computer Science
• Rosetta Stone - Language Analyst
• Sergeant Sam - General Security Service

Helpful links include - “How can I work for the NSA”? Where were all these career options when I was a kid?

Comments(1)

Posted by papi on October 20th 2006 in Engineering, Humor, Internet, Rants
::  [Print This Post]

Today, while trying to access everyone’s new favorite web site, I discovered that my DSL connection was not living up to its name any more, and staunchly refused to connect me anywhere despite my impassioned pleas. Perhaps the little Gremlin who sits inside the black box and passes around packets had suddenly decided he’d had enough of the industrious lifestyle and gone to smoke pot and hang with the Hippies. In any event, I could not access my email, and I felt lost. I’m afraid I’ve developed an emotional dependency on reading a couple dozen offers every morning to improve my vitality and increase the size and strength of various appendages. They make me feel wanted. Besides, the early morning hello from that friendly Nigerian banker has become almost as important to my sense of well being as the morning cup of coffee, even if he usually tells me another long lost uncle has just died in a horrible car crash. As I said, I felt lost.
(Read more…)

Comments(2)