Well you would be surprised how much does research depend on Government involvement. A little more than two-third of the funds at MIT and CMU come from federal sources. Had US military not been funding research and development, there was a good chance we might still be using Abacus for counting (pun intended):)
>> When I get money, I always use the ":-)" set of characters. Why can't we use emoticons for currency symbols?
Nice idea man. World would be a much happier place dealing with smileys. If Scott Fahlman had been born a few centuries earlier, we could have had one for a Dollar:)
Indian exports (and Imports) are growing at roughly 15% a year. Indian exports to US grew by 85% in 2008. India itself is growing at around 9%, which is supposed to average out at 8% for next 10-15 years. Point is, India is increasingly integrating with world economy and so is its currency.
Also, India is going to make its currency fully convertible in near future (very few currencies are fully convertible right now, without any sort of mediation). Adopting a symbol hence would do no harm, but can only be a unique differentiator with respect to other countries who also have similar sounding names for their currency.
Although, adopting a symbol for a currency is more symbolic and is truly justified in case of India.
@wallerbyrd: You are right 'and' wrong. Innovation needs prosperity and vice-versa. I can bet you would eat your words if you wait for another 15 years.
India got independence from the British in 1947, and as per records, then the literacy rate in India was between 7-12% (and in some Indian states hardly 2%). In that period India faced widespread famines, at least 3 wars. India was actually surviving on aid, and even required wheat imports from US to save itself from famines. Regarding all the "earth changing technologies such as nuclear power, heavier than air flight, or man on the moon" which you refer to as American achievements of the last 40 years, well, it would have been laughable for Indians to think about it when the first priority was to feed and educate its millions of people.
India currently has around 70% literacy rate (and more than 85% amongst the young), is more-or-less self reliant, has a strong service industry and a large GDP that is largely based on internal growth. Most Indian IT companies like Infosys, Tatas, Wipro etc were established in early 1990s and are growing by around 20% a year. Surprisingly when Obama stopped the project constellation at NASA because of the heavt cost, India gave its Ok to the manned Chandrayan-II moon mission.
As far as accomplishments go, what could be a bigger accomplishment than a fact that a nation of billion people that was almost broke in 1991, which was always referred to as a land of snake-charmers, is a strong economy, and a vibrant democracy. Compare India to any other colony of that era, and you would find it to be either broke, or nearly a terrorist nation.
Btw, make a visit to MIT, Stanford or CMU and find out the number the Indian grads. (It nears 40% at MIT and CMU). And the best part is that many are willing to return to India.
1) Only select group of rich countries were part of ACTA negotiations.
As per wikipedia entry: "The negotiations for the ACTA treaty are conducted behind closed doors by a select group of over 30 countries. The treaty was developed outside of normal IP venues such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization (post TRIPs). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge filed a FOIA request which was denied."
Countries such as India/China/Brazil in combined have over half the world population (and probably more than 50% drugs consumption), but were never involved in the treaty negotiations.
2) India is one of the largest producer of generics drugs. As a matter of fact over 90% of the generics used in Africa are made in India. They range from mass epidemics like maleria, cholera and other diseases that citizens of rich European countries and the US don't even hear about these days. And "surprisingly" they come at a fractional cost as compared to once produced in Zurich and California. An example could be standard Penicillin tablets whose price varies between $1 - $30 in US but just 10 Paise in India ($1 US ~= 45 Indian rupees, 1 Indian Ruppee = 100 paise). Yes I am not joking, that's true.
3) US/Scandanavian healthcare industry is very different than the third world health-care
Typically, medical-insurance covers you when you get sick in US, and that includes the cost of medicine. In India medical insurance is hardly heard of. And then there is the dynamics of scale.
It is other thing that after staying in US for some time I appreciate Indian health-care system much more. The level of commercialization in US is a hell lot creepy. Even after spending over $2.5 trillion per year (in 2008*), if US can't guarantee healthcare for its citizens, it has no right to enforce the same practices to the third world.
Well your problems are genuine ndverdo, but imagine some guy XYZ who is using the same route to fund a jehadi outfit for their services in India.
Also:
i) There is no traceability of the transactions
ii) You cannot tax anyone earning any amount in India as PayPal is not a bank.
We also don't exactly know the background story. It might be 100% feasible that Indian regulatory authorities might have requested logs of all such transactions and PayPal declined. This happened in Blackberry's case, where Blackberry declined Indian government to track its call data but it allows US government the same. Eventually Blackberry was blocked in India.
On the contrary voter machines in India have been extremely effective...even in absolute lawless remote villages and areas where forced voting was common and things were managed by powerful goons, these machines have restored normalcy.
A single machine could cast only a few votes per minutes. That means even if some one forces in a remote village polling booth and tries to forcefully vote, he can cast hardly a few votes until corrective action is ensured.
Secondly they ensure accurate counting and when votes run into a few million per constituency, the counting could be finished off in minutes rather than days.
Third they are secure and portable. There are regions in India which used to require arduous procedures just to transfer ballot boxes and then securing them and bring them back to main counting centers. A voting machine which is just the size of a laptop could be shipped much more safely.
And last of all there have been no instances of rigging them yet.
I believe if they are effective in a vast chaotic election scenario such as India where more than 1 billion people are involved, I have no reason to believe they cannot handle a much more advanced and sophisticated crowd in US. I found US to be much more techno savvy...It is really hard to understand then why such a big fuss around the use of technology....and moreover one which has proven its worth.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes you are right, but that's at ebay. I gave away my Palm for free to a friend...
The average price of Palm is still around $150+
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Palm&x=0&y=0
Well you would be surprised how much does research depend on Government involvement. A little more than two-third of the funds at MIT and CMU come from federal sources. Had US military not been funding research and development, there was a good chance we might still be using Abacus for counting (pun intended) :)
>> When I get money, I always use the ":-)" set of characters. Why can't we use emoticons for currency symbols?
Nice idea man. World would be a much happier place dealing with smileys. If Scott Fahlman had been born a few centuries earlier, we could have had one for a Dollar :)
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/smiley/
Indian exports (and Imports) are growing at roughly 15% a year. Indian exports to US grew by 85% in 2008. India itself is growing at around 9%, which is supposed to average out at 8% for next 10-15 years. Point is, India is increasingly integrating with world economy and so is its currency.
Also, India is going to make its currency fully convertible in near future (very few currencies are fully convertible right now, without any sort of mediation). Adopting a symbol hence would do no harm, but can only be a unique differentiator with respect to other countries who also have similar sounding names for their currency.
Although, adopting a symbol for a currency is more symbolic and is truly justified in case of India.
@wallerbyrd: You are right 'and' wrong. Innovation needs prosperity and vice-versa. I can bet you would eat your words if you wait for another 15 years.
India got independence from the British in 1947, and as per records, then the literacy rate in India was between 7-12% (and in some Indian states hardly 2%). In that period India faced widespread famines, at least 3 wars. India was actually surviving on aid, and even required wheat imports from US to save itself from famines. Regarding all the "earth changing technologies such as nuclear power, heavier than air flight, or man on the moon" which you refer to as American achievements of the last 40 years, well, it would have been laughable for Indians to think about it when the first priority was to feed and educate its millions of people.
India currently has around 70% literacy rate (and more than 85% amongst the young), is more-or-less self reliant, has a strong service industry and a large GDP that is largely based on internal growth. Most Indian IT companies like Infosys, Tatas, Wipro etc were established in early 1990s and are growing by around 20% a year. Surprisingly when Obama stopped the project constellation at NASA because of the heavt cost, India gave its Ok to the manned Chandrayan-II moon mission.
As far as accomplishments go, what could be a bigger accomplishment than a fact that a nation of billion people that was almost broke in 1991, which was always referred to as a land of snake-charmers, is a strong economy, and a vibrant democracy. Compare India to any other colony of that era, and you would find it to be either broke, or nearly a terrorist nation.
Btw, make a visit to MIT, Stanford or CMU and find out the number the Indian grads. (It nears 40% at MIT and CMU). And the best part is that many are willing to return to India.
1) Only select group of rich countries were part of ACTA negotiations.
As per wikipedia entry: "The negotiations for the ACTA treaty are conducted behind closed doors by a select group of over 30 countries. The treaty was developed outside of normal IP venues such as the World Intellectual Property Organization and the World Trade Organization (post TRIPs). The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge filed a FOIA request which was denied."
Countries such as India/China/Brazil in combined have over half the world population (and probably more than 50% drugs consumption), but were never involved in the treaty negotiations.
2) India is one of the largest producer of generics drugs. As a matter of fact over 90% of the generics used in Africa are made in India. They range from mass epidemics like maleria, cholera and other diseases that citizens of rich European countries and the US don't even hear about these days. And "surprisingly" they come at a fractional cost as compared to once produced in Zurich and California. An example could be standard Penicillin tablets whose price varies between $1 - $30 in US but just 10 Paise in India ($1 US ~= 45 Indian rupees, 1 Indian Ruppee = 100 paise). Yes I am not joking, that's true.
3) US/Scandanavian healthcare industry is very different than the third world health-care
Typically, medical-insurance covers you when you get sick in US, and that includes the cost of medicine. In India medical insurance is hardly heard of. And then there is the dynamics of scale.
It is other thing that after staying in US for some time I appreciate Indian health-care system much more. The level of commercialization in US is a hell lot creepy. Even after spending over $2.5 trillion per year (in 2008*), if US can't guarantee healthcare for its citizens, it has no right to enforce the same practices to the third world.
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_the_United_States
Well your problems are genuine ndverdo, but imagine some guy XYZ who is using the same route to fund a jehadi outfit for their services in India. Also: i) There is no traceability of the transactions ii) You cannot tax anyone earning any amount in India as PayPal is not a bank. We also don't exactly know the background story. It might be 100% feasible that Indian regulatory authorities might have requested logs of all such transactions and PayPal declined. This happened in Blackberry's case, where Blackberry declined Indian government to track its call data but it allows US government the same. Eventually Blackberry was blocked in India.
On the contrary voter machines in India have been extremely effective...even in absolute lawless remote villages and areas where forced voting was common and things were managed by powerful goons, these machines have restored normalcy.
A single machine could cast only a few votes per minutes. That means even if some one forces in a remote village polling booth and tries to forcefully vote, he can cast hardly a few votes until corrective action is ensured.
Secondly they ensure accurate counting and when votes run into a few million per constituency, the counting could be finished off in minutes rather than days.
Third they are secure and portable. There are regions in India which used to require arduous procedures just to transfer ballot boxes and then securing them and bring them back to main counting centers. A voting machine which is just the size of a laptop could be shipped much more safely.
And last of all there have been no instances of rigging them yet.
I believe if they are effective in a vast chaotic election scenario such as India where more than 1 billion people are involved, I have no reason to believe they cannot handle a much more advanced and sophisticated crowd in US. I found US to be much more techno savvy...It is really hard to understand then why such a big fuss around the use of technology....and moreover one which has proven its worth.