The other Panvel, to my right as I get off the train, is, not unlike Mumbai, an old town in a new world. Historically both a port and a trading town, Panvel was once the rice bowl of the north Konkan, with its famous Bazaar Peth, Mirchi and Kapad Gallis. Panvel Gaon dates back to 1725, when the Bapat Wada was built. It was elevated in the 1800s, when migrants from the Konkan were populating Bombay, and Panvel Shahar was an alternate place to make a home. When you talk to old-timers, they tell you that a newcomer could always find home in Bapat Wada and a job in Dhootpapeshwar, the ayurvedic factory. While the factory is gone, the wada still shelters several hundred residents.

Written by one of my architecture professors in India, this essay took me back to the town that I spent 14 years in and very little seems to have changed. Perhaps that's how Panvel is. Change is at the pace of an elephant trudging along.

[Link to Panvel - Perpetually in Transition]

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Behold the allegedly new iMac Touch purported to be in works at Apple. The OS changes as you change the angle at which you operate the computer. But of course, this is just a patent application so no dates on production yet.

[Source: Patently Apple]

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Post tags: apple, computers, innovation, mac, tablet, touch

The claim that we are in the Middle East to protect our liberties is misleading. To continue this charade, millions of Muslims are indicted and we are obligated to rescue them from their religious and political leaders. And we’re supposed to believe that abusing our liberties here at home and pursuing unconstitutional wars overseas will solve our problems.

The 19 suicide bombers didn’t come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iran. Fifteen came from our ally Saudi Arabia, a country that harbors strong anti-American resentment, yet we invade and occupy Iraq where no al-Qaeda existed prior to 9/11.

Many fellow conservatives say they understand the property rights and 1st Amendment issues and don’t want a legal ban on building the mosque. They just want everybody to be “sensitive” and force, through public pressure, cancellation of the mosque construction.

Rep.Ron Paul might be cuckoo at times but at least he sticks to his libertarian principles that other Tea Baggers claim to espouse. However, the demagoguery of the Right is more hypocritical than that of the Left because the former are allegedly anti-government intervention and pro-property rights. So it may be bipartisan demagoguery for sure but the persistent hypocritical nature of conservatives makes it more dangerous. Let me take my words back, Democrats wussing out on freedom of religion is equally dangerous because someone who will not stand up to their cause that they extol is equally to blame.

[Link to Bipartisan Demagoguery]

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Some political analysts and consultants say Mr. Lazio’s critique of the planned project is designed in significant part to ward off an unexpectedly spirited challenger in Carl Paladino, a wealthy upstate conservative who has spoken out against the project in even blunter language than Mr. Lazio.

In his own commercial, Mr. Paladino vowed that, if elected, he would use the government’s power of eminent domain to force the center’s developers to find a different location.

So a conservative probably who might even be a Tea Bagger wants to exercise government control over private property just because he doesn't agree with the land use in a neighborhood he doesn't live in? That, my friends, is the modern conservatism movement. They don't hate the government; they just want the government to do their bidding in line with their bigoted views.

[Link to Eminent Domain for your Convenience]

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Netbooks were an established consumer-electronics market with devices that people thought were pretty cool, but often frustrating and with serious shortcomings and design flaws.

Then this happened:

Marco Arment predicts the form of future tablets using the smartphone analogy. Imitation is indeed the highest form of flattery. It is a win-win for consumers and imitation is fine but you would wish other companies would get their innovation groove on at least sometimes. Ironically, the "We were there first" argument is used most by Apple haters in touting multitasking features in smartphones.

[Link to Future of Tablet Forms?]

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US News & World Report produces the most widely-read college rankings, but Forbes, The Princeton Review, and several other publications have produced their own rankings. The problem is that every single one of these rankings is just absolutely, completely, and totally full of crap.

These rankings have always been suspect yet are one of the top used criteria when students are choosing colleges that may well guide how the rest of their life turns out to be; especially for graduate school. Always talk directly to alumni, students and professors. See if the university and your department does or supports research that you are interested in. And yes, offers funding to do what you love to do.

[Link to Don't Believe College Rankings]

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"Dimensions takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are."

You cannot understand the true scale and measure of an event until you put it in the dimension of the things you are most familiar with. Perhaps then you will understand the true nature and impact of the event.

[Link to Scaling Events over Disparate Geographies]

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"Indian-Americans, the fastest growing Asian group in the United States, make up a little over three million of the country’s population. But only two — Jindal and Dalip Singh Saund, A Democrat who represented a California district from 1957 to 1963 — have ever served in Congress. This year, though, there are an unprecedented six Indian-American candidates, all Democrats, are running for the House. And with Jindal and Haley generating national attention, the prominence of Indian-American politicians has never been greater.

And while one might assume that cultural conformity would be more important to Republicans, given the party’s conservative, tradition-minded base, Indian-American Democratic candidates can be just as quick to prove their American assimilation to voters."

Although American Jews in politics never fail to burnish their Israeli connections, Indian-American pols especially in the Republican Party try to run as far from India as possible.

[Link to For Indian-American pols, the "What are you?" test]

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Post tags: diaspora, politics, United States

A 15-minute short and worth every second of it

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"Mr Sutton is the founder of CultofLess.com, a website which has helped him sell or give away his possessions – apart from his laptop, an iPad, an Amazon Kindle, two external hard drives, a "few" articles of clothing and bed sheets for a mattress that was left in his newly rented apartment.

This 21st-Century minimalist says he got rid of much of his clutter because he felt the ever-increasing number of available digital goods have provided adequate replacements for his former physical possessions."

Sutton is already at where we will be in a few years. Can you live with so few possessions?

[Link to Living out of a hard drive]

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Post tags: clutterfree, digital, materialism, minimalism

She did some research online and was getting more ‘bang for the buck’ for PC laptops but the Action Shoes-Nike analogy was dropped. Also, I recommended getting a Lenovo (used three before I got a Mac) or a high-end Dell if she really wanted a PC. But both could only be bought online and worked against instant gratification needs. One visit to Best Buy ^[1] where she played around with the Mac sealed the deal. Much thought was spent on the warranty aspect. I believe in AppleCare but Best Buy was also offering accidental damage coverage which seemed enticing for the accident-prone user. But upon clarification, we were told we could buy the accidental policy separately for $99 a year otherwise it was $449 for three years including tech support and accidental damage. Geek Squad is not particularly loved on Consumerist hence I was a little wary of relying on them.

But here is the kicker. Best Buy may be a better place to buy a Mac product than the Apple Store. In addition to the $100 education discount to university students, staff, and faculty, Apple also offers a free iPod Touch (2nd generation) worth $199 free with the purchase of any Mac computer. But in order to get it free, you have to first buy it at retail value and send in a rebate form to be reimbursed. This takes anywhere between 6 to 8 weeks so unless you really want an iPod Touch, it is a freebie that most are not interested in but get it anyway. It is a nice way for Apple to get rid of previous generation iPods before launching new ones in September. However, Best Buy in order to match that offer gives you a $199 store gift card that you can be used instantly toward any purchase in the store. So after taking into account all discounts, her 13″ MacBook Pro cost her $974 including sales tax (original price $1199 plus nearly $100 in tax); just below her threshold of a $1000 dollars. To me, that was an awesome deal and I now wonder why didn’t I do that last year ^[2].

Footnotes:

1. No Apple Store in town and the local authorized retail store was closed on Sunday; talk about sacrificing business at the altar of religion
2. I hook my Macbook Pro to an external monitor most of the time anyway so the laptop screen size doesn’t really matter; a 13″ would do just as fine

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35mm from Felix Meyer on Vimeo.

How many can you guess? Some are obvious; others not so much. Fun.

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Post tags: art, Movies

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Having lived in Atlanta for over 5 years and having driven on the road shown in the video, I can attest to the death trap that it is for pedestrians.

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Post tags: Atlanta, roads, traffic

iWant. But too frikkin’ expensive (pssst…my birthday is coming up). What I like about it best apart from the obvious aesthetic appeal? The one cable that replaces three. That warms the cockles of my cable-clutter-free heart.

[Source: Apple]

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Post tags: apple, display, monitor

Users proclaim 1Password as one of the best Mac utilities ever made, and that joy has rightfully spread to the iPhone/iPod touch and more recently, the iPad, Windows and even Android. The desktop version just got a major new update with a long list of great new features, capped by using Dropbox to sync between the different versions.

The apps for the iPhone and iPad synced your passwords from the desktops to your phone so in case you wanted to login to your accounts on a third-party or public computer (not recommended for obvious security reasons). The apps on your phone let you directly login to your account just like on your desktop. The only point of inconvenience was remembering to manually sync your phone and desktop each time you added or modified any login details. 1Password just made it a lot easier by letting you store your encrypted password database on Dropbox (surely, you have heard of this tool). Now syncing is done on the fly and your login details are always up-to-date. Obviously, you need to use a similarly strong password for your Dropbox and protect your phone with a keypad lock (set to delete all data after a fixed number of tries).

The app for the desktop and your other devices like the iPhone or the iPad are relatively expensive at $39.99 and $14.99 but for the protection of your online data that often includes your financial information, it is a small price to pay. Obviously the convenience factor rates high in my opinion whether it is setting up Dropbox to store your 1Password database or sync with other devices.

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Post tags: 1password, dropbox, mac, passwords, security

Just to be clear, I haven’t refrained from buying Apple over the years because I blog about Microsoft. Many of my Microsoft-watching colleagues consider it imperative and even enjoyable to use Apple’s wares. But I never wanted to be part of the Apple community because I have had so many negative, hostile and condescending interactions with not just Apple fanboys, but regular Apple users. If that’s what “thinking different” was, I wanted no parts.

But in her defense, I can understand her predicament. Switching platforms is not easy especially if you have gotten used to the one you started out on. Apple fanboys and avid Windows users are just as likely to refuse to consider the other option; probably because change can be difficult. I’m a recent convert to Mac (talking about hostile and negative, I’ve been already labeled a Mactard) but still continue using Windows at work. Most of my statistics programs like SAS and ArcGIS work best on Windows. Although Windows 7 is said to be the best thing that came out of Microsoft in a while, I’m content with XP. But if I were to recommend a computer to a new user (mostly family or close friends), I would recommend a Mac even if it was for the simple reason of avoiding potential future tech support that I have to provide.

But if it helps, I won’t be ‘negative and hostile’. Honestly, I’ve never met a negative or hostile geek, PC or Mac. They are always only too willing to help out so I suggest Mary Jo Foley change her geeky friends. And don’t feel too guilty about buying the only tablet that is available in the market right now. Not using Apple products just for the sake for not using them doesn’t make sense to someone who believes in openess, right? Unless you mean openness of the platform and not the mind. Sheesh! There I go again being all negative and hostile. I’m sorry.

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Post tags: apple, computers, ipad, mac, Windows

Number of birds killed by the BP oil spill: at least 2,188 and counting.

Number of birds killed by wind farms: 10,000-40,000 annually.

Number of birds killed by cars: 80 million annually.

Number of birds killed by cats: Hundreds of millions to 1 billion annually.

Don’t worry there is some good news.  

Number of birds killed by fisheries: tens to hundreds of thousands annually

[Source: Marginal Revolution] Putting things in perspective doesn’t hurt, right? But as rightly noted in the comments on Marginal Revolution, concentration of deaths especially of endangered species due to an avoidable human-created environmental disaster is much different from scattered deaths of rest of the birds.

Just so as to put things into perspective, nearly 45,000 people die every year in road accidents in the United States but only 3,000 have died in terrorism-related incidents in the past ten years. Care to guess where most of our attention (and funds) is focused on?

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Post tags: birds, comparison, disaster, perspective, statistics

Elsa, a dachshund mix was our first foster dog. We recently started fostering dogs with Impact Animal Foundation after we read this heart-wrenching story about the animal rescue shelter in College Station. Our biggest worry was how would Lucy react to the new dog in the house. We tried reading up as much as we could on properly introducing Lucy to our new foster. But apart from a couple of tense and snappy moments, the girls loved each other. Elsa (named after one of my dogs in India) was the playful friendly pup who quietly bore Lucy snarls and aggressive style of play. For a couple of days, we had to follow the girls armed with a water spray in case they went at each other. A few sprays and they realized that a bitch fight wasn’t in their best interest so they better find a way to be friends. Toward the end of her stay, Elsa and Lucy were great friends and ran amok inside and in the backyard chasing each other. We still Lucy still misses her.

Although we had decided to steel ourselves and not consider Elsa as a permanent pet since that would make her adoption easy, she found her way into our hearts. Her pitiful look and extremely waggy tail didn’t make it easy for you to hold back your affection. She could not just wag her tail but in fact wag her ass, if that makes sense. Compared to Lucy who can be tempted only with walks, all you had to do to get Elsa’s attention is be around. She would follow you everywhere; so much so that you started to get an idea of what Mary had to endure with her little lamb. Ash would comment that it was a funny sight to see two dogs follow me everywhere around the house even if I was going to the kitchen to get a glass of water. After being the sole object of our attention, Lucy suddenly understood what it was like to compete for our attention.

But there were certain boundaries that we enforced with Elsa. When we were away at work or anywhere else, she was kept in her crate. Lucy had the run of the house, on the other hand. This was done basically for toilet training and to keep her teething jaws away from our furniture. Of course, we had a few accidents but grabbing her as soon as she crouched down and rushing like crazy to the yard helped get the point across. However, one thing we could never train her out of – sleeping alone at night. She was fine sleeping in her crate in the living room for the first few days. But then her whining and yelps kept us up most of the two night we had decided to ignore her (as most experts will advise you). Finally, we got her in the bedroom, crate and all and the four of us could sleep in peace.

She was too cute and adorable not to be adopted quickly. After only two visits to adoption day, she received two applications for adoption. Impact processed them both and decided that a young college student in town was the best fit. I dropped her off on Tuesday while Ash stayed back and bawled her eyes out. Although we knew this was going to happen, we (and Lucy) had gotten used to her presence in a matter of three weeks. We will always remember her as our first foster. I hope she stays happy and enjoys her new home.

PS. We just heard from Impact’s foster coordinator. She has two dogs – Scooter and Lobo – under consideration for our home. We are ready whenever they are :)

Update:Lobo is now renamed Bolo because apparently Impact had a dog called Lobo who had to be euthanized. Bolo arrives today at 5:30pm. We can’t wait.

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Post tags: dogs, foster, Personal, pets

The foster process was slightly longer than our adoption process. First, we met with their outreach coordinator at a local coffee shop who gave us a short presentation on her laptop regarding the foundation’s mission, goal, and objectives. She told us it was required by the law. We paid one-time membership dues ($20) and we were officially part of their volunteer group. If we wanted, we could even offer our time at the local Petsmart every Saturday on Adoptions Day when the general public can see and be with all foster pets. The lucky ones get adoption applications which are processed quickly and the pets get a new home. Yes, some people end up adopting their foster pets and it is rightly called, “foster fail”. You can definitely adopt your foster but more pets you have, the less space there is for the next foster.

Next up, we received a home visit from their Foster Coordinator who basically answered all our questions and saw our home. We could specify what kind of dog we wanted especially with Lucy around because we didn’t want to referee an impromptu mad dogfight at home. Also, we wanted a dog that we could crate for eight hours when we were away at work. Ash is still wary of big dogs so that was our other criteria. Other than that, we were ready to open up our home to a foster dog.

Impact Animal Foundation in College Station, TX picks up dogs from the local rescue shelters and places them in people’s home temporarily until they find permanent homes. This gives the dogs the comforts of a real home compared to the maddening and depressing atmosphere of the shelter. Although much better than what I have seen in India, shelters can be noisy, cramped, and somewhat dirty. Unfortunately, the shelter has to euthanize dogs after a certain period of time if they are not adopted in order to make place for the new ones that come in. By law, they cannot refuse any new animal that is brought in by anyone for any reason. Space is limited and this is where organizations like Impact make a difference. We were only too happy to help out.

After all the formalities were complete, the foster coordinator called us after a few days and told us she had a dog for us. More on Elsa soon.

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Post tags: dogs, foster, pets

Jairam Ramesh: If you don’t want to pay you don’t, I will pay from my tax money. Anyway most of you do not pay your taxes. In India very few people responsibly pay their taxes and I pay my tax and my tax money would be used for cleaning up Bhopal.

[Source: Jairam Ramesh gets a roasting from TISS students in Mumbai; via Jina Joan DCruz]See, it is that simple. Mr. Jairam Ramesh is proposing a major reform to our tax code that will enable us to specify which government projects we can direct our tax dollars to. I say, we support this idea to see how it pans out. Mr. Jairam Ramesh has already pledged his taxes for cleaning up Bhopal. I’m sure his seven hundred generations will also live up to that pledge.

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Post tags: Bhopal, India