Drishtikone
All achievements are dependent upon four factors: time, place, action, and means. Among these action or effort holds the key because, surely, all endeavours towards the achievement are based on action or effort. Read more
All achievements are dependent upon four factors: time, place, action, and means. Among these action or effort holds the key because, surely, all endeavours towards the achievement are based on action or effort. Read more
Saw this on Amit Aggarwal's Digital Inspiration blog. It is about how a company Congregational Security uses Google Apps, Earth, Maps etc to protect dignitaries and celebs in Israel and India (as well as US). So its pretty interesting that some company can use the Google stuff in totally unrelated ways! Now, about the real story that Amit missed... can you imagine if Google started monetizing these Apps? Started charging for it instead of giving it out "Google-Free"? This may be the only reason why I would go ahead and buy Google stock now for my kids!! Guys, its not about the coolness.. its about the control over meta-data that they are after.. Google Earth, Google Space.. and also Google Ocean on going as well. Its about the metadata and Universal Intelligence that they are after! Hmm are we missing it? Read more
Is there something to some energies? Can there be a source of energy that you can't really identify? It seems like globeddy-gook.. but in some areas as big as a town, it seems true. There is a small town in South West England called Glastonbury. It has a hill and on top of that is a tower with no roof. The hill is called Glastonbury Tor and the tower is the remains of St. Michael's Church. Glastonbury is a small town in Somerset, England, situated at a dry point on the Somerset Levels, 50km (31 miles) south of Bristol. The town has a population of 8,800 (2002 estimate). It is in the Mendip district. I watched a program where this guy used a technique called dowsing to check on the energy lines through the town. There are two different lines that converge within that town. In fact they spiral up the hill and the spiral reach its end at the center of the tower (the roof at the center is not there). Read more
Indian summer leads into the monsoons. As the heat of summer gives way to smell of the first monsoon rain, a lot changes for India! The memories Monsoons are not the same as they used to. When the entire family used to sleep on the terrace and then during the night, the rain would start falling. All the terraces of the neighborhood would witness a skirmish. The light matresses and sheets were quickly folded.. the cots (manjian) were lifted by men and put on a side and everyone would rush down into the hot rooms. When the rains had started and the initial dust in the air had settled down, I still remember that we used to get out in the rain and bathe under the monsoon showers. The freshness of the rain and the wonder of the the droplets from heaven is difficult to describe! By the time the monsoons arrived, the best of mangoes would have been tasted - the dussheris and the langdas.. and now, was the time when the whole family would sit together in the evenings as people on the street below would run helter skelter as every one would sip on some hot chai with excellent hot pakoras made of potatoes, methi, onion, etc. In those days the ketchup had just about arrived, and the Mothers those days would learn how to make some at home along with different types of chutneys. So, the pakoras were usually enjoyed with home-made tomato ketchup and some mint chutney. Read more
Generally, as I blog, I do not really look for how it is doing from the "commercial" standpoint - as in the hits and unique visitors etc. Today, I decided to check out my stats using the Awstats functionality in my cpanel. What I saw is showin below. The stats don't look bad at all. The hits seem to have been between 300k and 400k. The Unique visitors are around 7000-10,000 a month and number of visits are between 15k to 20k. That means a person makes it back to drishtikone at least twice a month. The visitors have been checking out about 60k-100k pages a month!! That is quite a bit! At least drishtikone has enough to keep them busy 😉 The Google Page Rank is 3 (it was 4 at some point before the changes to drupal version and hack attack). The Alexa Rank is around 900k and falling every day. Read more
Finally, the US democratic institutions have shown that they have a semblance of democratic ideals still left in them!! The US judiciary is tied to its executive as the US President chooses at least some US Supreme Court judges during his tenure. Bush has been pushing Guantanamo agenda and making access to legal rights for the prisoners almost impossible. Now after years of pussilianimity, the Supreme Court put its foot down and given its piece of mind: In essence, the court said to the Bush administration that it can continue with the flawed proceedings at Guantanamo, but when they are reviewed by the courts, the prisoners will have a full range of legal tools to challenge their detentions, and the burden of proof will be on the government. Basically the ruling said that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have a constitutional right to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts and that the US Administration's system for classifying the detainees as enemy combatants is not completely legal. As expected - against the democratic norms and in spirit of nepotism - Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Antonin Scalia put in their dissent. And that was my point. IN a REAL democracy - Judiciary, Executive, and Legislature have to be CHECKS and BALANCES on each other. You cannot have executive run the show with an iron fist. Then, such a society is no different from a dictatorship! Here is a copy of the judgment. Read more
So, a flying saucer from the earth is ready and a Bengali has created a prototype for it in the US. Subrata Roy is a University of Florida mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor. He has submitted a patent for his flying saucer. It is a circular, spinning aircraft design and is called “wingless electromagnetic air vehicle,” or WEAV. Roy's work on plasma actuator was used to create the propulsion system for the craft. It is currently a 6 inch diameter prototype but Roy believes it can be scaled. In its present avatar it might be used for surveillance and navigation. Read more
In an obscure village of India, a 'Quack' was having a roaring practice, doling out medicines to the unsuspecting villagers. He had a compounder, who used to honour his prescriptions. After few years the compounder, thought he is grossly underpaid by his master and one night he vanishes with a bagful of medicines and the experience imbibed from his master. He goes and sets up his own practice, in another remote village and as is the pre-requiste, he appoints a compounder for his practice. He picked up a fairly good practice. Read more
Over heard in an Air-port A middle aged man enquiring a young man Excuse me young man, Are you by any chance the son of Mr.Padmanabh? Younger looking man replied Yes sir, very much, but not by any chance. Read more
What do we mean by attention? Is there attention when I am forcing my mind to attend? When I say to myself, "I must pay attention, I must control my mind and push aside all other thoughts," would you call that attention? Surely that is not attention. What happens when the mind forces itself to pay attention? It creates a resistance to prevent other thoughts from seeping in; it is concerned with resistance, with pushing away; therefore it is incapable of attention. That is true, is it not? Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In