rantlust

Posted by bab on December 13th 2007 in Parenting, World
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I just saw this on our local bay area NBC 11 news about a dutch couple giving up their 7-year old adopted daughter because the kid they say doesn’t fit in. They had adopted the South Korean girl when she was four months old after they failed to conceive any children. However after the adoption they did conceive two kids biologically. They have handed over the kid to social workers in Hong Kong where they are currently living (The dutch guy is a diplomat). I am not sure what to say but their actions certainly don’t fit it.

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Posted by anupcs on September 05th 2007 in Geography, Travel, USA, World
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Recently, fellow blogger Suman asked me half jokingly if there are places in this world that I haven’t been to. Sure, I do love to travel and go to places (some of them damn near exotic) whenever the budget, boss and wife come into perfect alignment and more importantly post photographs and travelogues online. But even my travels have taken me to only a small fraction of this big world of ours. Quite a few of my close friends have been to far more places than I have. Something that can be visualized by the following maps. The first one details all the countries in the world I have been to and the second one displays all the states in the US that I have been to. You can generate your own such links here (world) and here (US).

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Posted by riyer on July 15th 2007 in Food & Wine, Society, Trivia, World
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To me the idea of eating Foie Gras made me wince, but then what do I know, I am a pesca-vegetarian.

Now I learn of “kopi luwak” - Enjoying coffee, made from beans that have been harvested from the dung of a civet. There is no accounting of taste, I tell you. I can understand the dung beetle having to do its thing, but we are people - accused frequently of being civilized. Do we really have to? Not being a coffee connoisseur, you can be assured that this is one coffee I will not taste.

BTW: The LA times has a story on this $600 a pound “ugh!”.

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Posted by anupcs on July 09th 2007 in Earth, Entertainment, Environment, Music, Science, World
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Thanks to TiVo, I was able to watch a lot of footage of the Live Earth concerts on July 7. The gigs were held in all seven continents in nine cities (New York, London, Johannesburg, Rio de Janeiro, Shanghai, Hamburg, Sydney, Tokyo, and Adelaide Island in Antarctica) to highlight the inconvenient truths regarding global warming. A large number of music stars ranging from Metallica to Madonna and some newly revived oldies such as The Police and Genesis (sans Peter Gabriel) participated. Eco St. Gore appeared as well with his hybrid driving buddies Leo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz though there were no PowerPoint slides this time.

This is all good but as Ricky Gervais (of the British “The Office” fame) cynically hinted at Wembley while introducing an act, all these celebrities came to these concerts from all over the world, some of them with their entourages in private jets and is that a good message to convey when dealing with carbon offsets and the like? The BBC’s coverage of the concert ended with the following telling paragraph:

“Thousands of plastic cups were left on the Wembley Stadium floor at the end of the London concert, despite organisers urging the audience to put them into recycling bins provided.”

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Posted by anupcs on July 08th 2007 in Geography, History, India, Society, Trivia, World
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I still don’t know what the real purpose of this exercise was but the new seven wonders of the world has been announced (on 7/7/07 no less) and they are:

1. Chichén Itzá, Mexico
2. Christ the Redeemer, Brazil
3. The Great Wall of China
4. Machu Picchu, Peru
5. Petra, Jordan
6. The Colloseum, Italy
7. The Taj Mahal, India

I have visited the first three and don’t know why the Christ statue is in this list. It’s definitely awe inspiring but surely there are more impressive “wonders” to put on this list in its stead? Angkor Wat? The Acropolis? The pyramids of Giza? In any case, I don’t think we can limit the wonders of the world to merely seven. It might have made sense in the ancient times but not now.

Curiously enough, I haven’t been to the Taj Mahal just yet.

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Posted by renéejo on July 05th 2007 in Geography, Travel, Women, World
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I finally did it! I quit my job, sold my flat and am already on my way to a journey that I hope will be life changing. After thinking very hard about this for at least a year and after long and painful conversations with those near and dear to me, I have decided to take at least a year off and travel the world mostly to exotic places that I haven’t spent much time in. Alone. I have no specific itinerary yet but am going to make them as I go along. I am only packing a small rucksack with a change of clothes for a week. I am not even taking a camera. I want to experience everything first hand and have my journal and this blog as my place to record my experience as I travel the world in search of meaning for my existence. I am not sure how much internet access I’ll have during the next year or so but I’ll try to update this blog with my experiences with the curious people, animals and places I will encounter whether it be in the train to Tibet or among the lemurs in Madagascar.

I am sooo shit scared but at the same time the adrenalin levels have never been higher. I am already in my first stop… Beijing, China and am writing this from here. More later… Zai Jian and Ni Hau.

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Posted by riyer on March 19th 2007 in Education, Internet, Journalism, Productivity, Statistics, Women, World
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A few of my friends, my wife included, frequently bemoan the fact that the world as we know it is coming apart and things are getting worse every day. The daily onslaught of news on the human condition does not help alleviate this feeling for them.

Ever the optimist, I assert that on the whole this generation is doing better by itself and by its fellow man compared to any other generation in the past. Obviously I say this with no data, only as someone who is actively engaged in a grounds-up effort to provide opportunity to those who have none. Personal experience of being with some of these people gives me that optimism. Now it turns out that there is also data available to show that our lot is getting better, not worse.

Take a look at Gapminder They present human development data across the world in some very cool and innovative ways (Google has acquired their technology to make it available for free).

Go to the tools section and try out the GapMinder World, 2006 (the first one on the Tools page). You can change the X and Y axes (It defaults to Income v/s Life Expectancy but you can change them (e.g. you can compare Life Expectancy v/s Military Spending). It gives you a clear indicator on how things are changing around the world (except in Sub Saharan Africa where, due to the AIDS crisis, things have slipped back a bit).

BTW: It is also a fantastic way to get kids interested in statistics. Over the weekend my 6 y.o look at it over my shoulder and the next thing you know she spent more than an hour in front of the computer playing with the X and Y Axes. She kept telling me everything from “How Malawi compares with the United States in Child Mortality (I explained to her what that is)” , she was playing with Physicans per 1000 people etc, population growth over time etc.

I would also recommend the 1 hour Tech Talk they have posted (given at Google) and the video on Slums.

(Sorry, this post does not fit into any one category that we have - so I choose a few of them)

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Posted by bab on December 15th 2006 in Animals, Rescue, World
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arms. The world’s tallest man, a 7-foot-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia, used his long 41.7-inch arms to save two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs. Click here for slideshow.

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