Yes, that's a major issue with The Google Way, I'm afraid, and this one's less retractable than the whole spam issue. You see, Google seems to believe in a certain democratization, if you will, of information, somehow equating popularity with importance. This might work for search algos, but for a news aggregator, that rather sucks; I mean, I really wouldn't want to get my cricket headlines from Al Jazeera, for instance.
Oh, Rotten Tomatoes works if you want to get reviews for a specific movie, but what if you wanted to know about a movie? Perhaps, browse an not so well-defined genre?
Note that the way the particular section has been worded, it could be applicable to everything from sodomy to bestiality and everything else. Let me, therefore, clarify on my earlier point once again: YES, the law has been used, but NO, as far as my memory goes, no COURT as ruled against two *consenting* adults caught in a homosexual act. (skimmed through your link quickly; haven't found any)
gay people live in fear, their freedom has been curtained, they are oppressed.
I think this has to be taken into context. See, even heterosexual couples are often harrassed by the police for bribes, there's this law against eve-teasing that they can successfully use to harrass, but none of that can stand up in a court of law.
So essentially, my point is that while homosexual Indians may be harrassed by the police for bribes and such, or perhaps, by mobs with political agendas, it would be difficult to argue that there is systematic persecution of homosexuals in India. This, of course, is not to say that everything's hunky-dory legally speaking; like most other parts of the Indian judicial system, the law against "unnatural sexual acts" is also in need of urgent legal reform (or at least, some sort of a clarification, perhaps, from the Supreme Court that the section doesnt cover homosexual acts).
Then again, there are other parts of the legal system (such as the religion-based Personal Laws, the police system in general) that require even more urgent reform, so it's probably understandable why gay rights is on a backbench.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Indian takeover of Slashdot is near complete. Not only do we have a thread discussing Mallu jokes, but we also have moderators who understand what the general honorific "Mallu" means.
Now for some gnaa.ac.in action and we're set to become a knowledge superpower.
The actual section involved is an archaic provision that we inherited from the British Common Law. The interesting bit is that, like all other colonial-era laws, it is vague enough to be completely unenforceable. More to the point, there has been no particular case of court-sanctioned imprisonment because of the law.
Still, I agree; it shouldn't be there in the first place.
but I think no one here has been paying enough attention to Microsoft lately.
In particular, ladies and gentlemen, consider MSN Search's fantastic Encarta Integration feature; you ask, for instance, "Who killed Abraham Lincoln? (to take MSN's own sample search string), and it gives you the answer. As much as I hate MSN, I think this makes it MSN 1 - Google 0; nope, Google's answer.com integration just doesn't match.
I'd consider Google's offer of hosting Wikipedia sites in the light of this feature offering by Microsoft.
Actually, it's more fun this way; hate those truer-than-thou PC statements that we've been brainwashed into expecting from "leaders" and the like.
That said, I do think he has spent too much time on/. (and therefore, perhaps feels too connected to/.'s subcultural leanings to not be polite in his tone).
All the major Indian scripts encoded using Unicode are based on Devanagari (used to write Hindi and other languages).
Untrue. All South Indian languages use Unicode for encoding, and yet, none of their scripts are based on Devnaagri.
Take for example Gurmukhi (the script used to write Punjabi) - Gurmukhi is a simple script and doesn't have the complexities involved in some other Indic scripts. However to maintain compatibility with other scripts, independent vowels are encoded seperately which is unnatural for Gurmukhi.
Now, I can't read Gurmukhi myself, so I'm not sure what you mean by independent vowels being unnatural. Are you saying that Gurmukhi doesn't use the vowels 'a', 'aa', 'i', 'ii' etc seperately?
However as I see it, we have been forced to accept a standard that hasn't been fully thought out for individual Indian scripts.
I agree in a different respect; in my mother tongue, Telugu for instance, conjunct-consonants ('adhaa akshar' in Hindi) are actually a different set of beasts from their Devnaagri counterparts (visually speaking, that is). And yet, Unicode treats them like they are half-letters so to speak, a formulation that is behaviourally correct, but computationally unnecessary.
That said, I still believe ISCII is the most optimal solution we have at hand for Indic language computing, and that, since the only real block now is on a uniform standard, it's best if the developer community not go back on internationally agreed standards.
This causes problems with typing and adds and extra layer of complexity.
Gurmukhi, incidentally, is fully supported on Win XP systems.
A lot can be blamed on ISCII!
Actually, a lot more can be blamed on the ISCII => Unicode conversion; implementing the ISCII spec per se, IMHO, isn't as much an issue as implementing it as Unicode.
Anyway, appreciate your post; I'm a linguist-coder myself at night, so looking forward to having a good discussion on these matters.
Was just quoting a theological notion that is becoming popular among many educated Hindus lately. This is a part of our post-modernist science outreach programme, not part of the regular mythology discourse.
And those Hindus who do not accept evolution have quite a different version of creationism from the Christians and Muslims.
Well, there are many Hindus who believe that Hindu mythology "follows" Darwinian modes of evolution. Lord Vishnu, you see, in his 10 avatars, was a fish, tortoise, pig, lion before taking a human form.
Frankly, I find even this abhorrent; it kinda gives science a hidden, all-pervasive, "divine" message, if you will, something that's against the scientific spirit of enquiry. It's also a crazy back-handed way of "validating" Hindu mythology in pseudo-scientific terms, something that I think my modes of spirituality can do without.
Then there's also this small problem of a pig being closer to humans in evolutionary terms (?) than a lion, which of course kinda screws up the concept in real, logical terms.
It had a clear lead on Mozilla and IE for a while but it just goes to show that most people won't pay money for "great" when "good" is free.
Ummm, there has been a per-gratis edition ever since Version 5?
Now they have made some inroads in the embedded market, but it looks like the Mozilla team has their sites [sic] set on this as well.
I don't know if you know this, but before discovering the Symbian market (and discoverin g Google), Opera was actually making a loss. Look at it this way:- there has never been a better time for Opera than the current.
For around £400 (yeah, Apple just like the rest of them loves screwing non-Americans when it comes to exchange rates)
That's only for you Brits. Out here in Singapore, these beasts are rather cheap.:-)
I've gotta admit it: the pricing is AMAZING. With this price, they're no longer competing with Dell or HP/Compaq, but with the Taiwanese PC-clone manufacturers in Sim Lim!
No, it means you need to show a little respect to the people who set out to make it possible for you (an assumably normal person) to fly into space, however briefly.
"I'm not a hen, but I can tell a good omelette from a bad one better than any hen in the world." - Anon.
Especially considering the costs of reestablishing a social network. Are we really still that good?
Indian based in Singapore, so I'm probably very well suited to answer this question. In fact, I think I posted on this sometime back on/.
In terms of infrastructure at your disposal and costs, it is true; international universities (by which I mean any university that offers alternatives such as an MSc, and not MS) are waaaay better options than American ones. But in terms of people you get to interact with, I believe American universities still beat the rest; if you select your university properl, you aren't there with the best in the region, but clearly, with the best in the world.
So, in that sense, my advice for the OP would be this:- don't go by countries or college brand-names, but by people. Ultimately, your grad school experience can only be as good as the people, ie, fellow students, lecturers and so on, you hang out with inside and outside the class; just make sure you won't end up in a place where you aren't intellectually stimulated by the rest of the group. Anything else will follow through from that.
For almost any Indian parent, a steady professional job (medicine, business, law, engineering, etc.) is far more attractive than a riskier yet potentially more lucrative job (artist, musician, comedian, etc.)
It's fast changing though. Am always amused by parents who prod their kids to study hard and pick up a soft-skill such as singing; whatever happened to traditional childhood activities such as playing or having fun?
This is why India is producing so many engineer, doctors and techies out there.
Let's get this out straight. There are families that promote higher education, and there are a lot of graduates in India (we have the highst number of PhD's in the world?) But I doubt if the two have a causal relationship; it'll be interesting to see if we have a proportionally higher number of grads than other countries.
Heh, I'm sure you didn't notice this when you wrote it, but I hope you do know that there's a significant difference between saying 'take it with a pinch of salt' and 'I'm spicing things up'.:-)
Back to the topic though. Actually, there's also a reason #0: with rampant grade inflation, and massive increases in student intake, undergrad in India is just not what it used to be; you can actually get a (good, first-class-upper) degree without too much effort. There just isnt too much to differentiate the good from the rest, so most bright, and moderately bright, students prefer to take the grad school route to improve resumes.
Then there's also reason #3 playing in somewhere: peer pressure. If my sibling, my bestest friend from college, his sibling, his sibling's bestest friend in college and so on have gotten degrees, then I sure would also like to have one. Just the nature of things.
That said, I've also noticed something else; Indians who do their Bachelors in an international university generally don't look at doing a technical masters. They seem to prefer MBA's and challenges in the corporate world like most American grads. So, in that sense, I guess the *real* answer is, you're right, #2: Easy Ticket Out of India.:-)
It's no accident that Linux was such an pleasant project to hack on way back when, Linus is just such a humble and polite person.
Tell me, were you being ironic?:-) I mean, for fuck's sake, Linus was involved in the only flamefest we were "taught" about in a CS course!
These days you're lucky to get a reply to an email when offering to contribute code to an open source project, let alone someone actually thanking you for going to the effort of making something for others to enjoy.
Hate adding to a Good Ol' Times meme, but those USENET oldies sure had a lot of time back then; I mean, look at this fascinating posting from 1993. The guy not only demolishes the OP's points, but also deconstructs his writing style as well! You really don't get that sort of stuff these days in discussion fora, USENET or not, so it's probably more to do with netiquette back then, and less to do with Linus himself. (Which of course, is not to say he's not a great guy).
Heh, similar experience here; mine was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum +. Filled my television screen with name repeated all over, and in multiple colours, and boy, was hooked to programming ever since.
In conclusion, I'd like to say Goto is considered harmful and that you should never teach that to eight year olds.
Actually, look at it this way. College is just about the only place where you can develop this deep appreciation of the craft of designing software, you know, this whole art of creating some inter-linked logical formulations that can stand on their own when you release them, so to speak, in the wild.
Not that you cant get that kick in corporate life, I get it every day, but if I didnt attend all those Intro to Programming Methodologies, Data Structures and Algos classes, I wouldn't have learnt the art of appreciating code. Or even, why certain code needs to be appreciated in the first place.
Interesting links, thanks for pointing out. Didn't know we had something like this on a governmental website (nor that there was an actual disaster management division in the Home Ministry).
Reading through all the news pouring in from the region, seems to me that cyclones are, in a sense, cool; the eastern coast of India (particularly the state of Andhra Pradesh) has the second highest rate of cyclones per year in the world, so in a sense, the local government and the Met department is rather tuned to weather situations in the Bay of Bengal. Of course, better governance structures always help; ap.gov.in, for instance, has some redundant bandwidth on which they setup a video-conferencing link connecting all district hq's.
In any case, on a quick glance, there are some holes to picked while working through this website; will post later on this.:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, that's a major issue with The Google Way, I'm afraid, and this one's less retractable than the whole spam issue. You see, Google seems to believe in a certain democratization, if you will, of information, somehow equating popularity with importance. This might work for search algos, but for a news aggregator, that rather sucks; I mean, I really wouldn't want to get my cricket headlines from Al Jazeera, for instance.
Oh, Rotten Tomatoes works if you want to get reviews for a specific movie, but what if you wanted to know about a movie? Perhaps, browse an not so well-defined genre?
You sure? For all you know, it could be vindictive Bongs!
So essentially, my point is that while homosexual Indians may be harrassed by the police for bribes and such, or perhaps, by mobs with political agendas, it would be difficult to argue that there is systematic persecution of homosexuals in India. This, of course, is not to say that everything's hunky-dory legally speaking; like most other parts of the Indian judicial system, the law against "unnatural sexual acts" is also in need of urgent legal reform (or at least, some sort of a clarification, perhaps, from the Supreme Court that the section doesnt cover homosexual acts).
Then again, there are other parts of the legal system (such as the religion-based Personal Laws, the police system in general) that require even more urgent reform, so it's probably understandable why gay rights is on a backbench.
Now for some gnaa.ac.in action and we're set to become a knowledge superpower.
Still, I agree; it shouldn't be there in the first place.
In particular, ladies and gentlemen, consider MSN Search's fantastic Encarta Integration feature; you ask, for instance, "Who killed Abraham Lincoln? (to take MSN's own sample search string), and it gives you the answer. As much as I hate MSN, I think this makes it MSN 1 - Google 0; nope, Google's answer.com integration just doesn't match.
I'd consider Google's offer of hosting Wikipedia sites in the light of this feature offering by Microsoft.
That said, I do think he has spent too much time on /. (and therefore, perhaps feels too connected to /.'s subcultural leanings to not be polite in his tone).
That said, I still believe ISCII is the most optimal solution we have at hand for Indic language computing, and that, since the only real block now is on a uniform standard, it's best if the developer community not go back on internationally agreed standards.
Gurmukhi, incidentally, is fully supported on Win XP systems. Actually, a lot more can be blamed on the ISCII => Unicode conversion; implementing the ISCII spec per se, IMHO, isn't as much an issue as implementing it as Unicode.Anyway, appreciate your post; I'm a linguist-coder myself at night, so looking forward to having a good discussion on these matters.
Was just quoting a theological notion that is becoming popular among many educated Hindus lately. This is a part of our post-modernist science outreach programme, not part of the regular mythology discourse.
Frankly, I find even this abhorrent; it kinda gives science a hidden, all-pervasive, "divine" message, if you will, something that's against the scientific spirit of enquiry. It's also a crazy back-handed way of "validating" Hindu mythology in pseudo-scientific terms, something that I think my modes of spirituality can do without.
Then there's also this small problem of a pig being closer to humans in evolutionary terms (?) than a lion, which of course kinda screws up the concept in real, logical terms.
I've gotta admit it: the pricing is AMAZING. With this price, they're no longer competing with Dell or HP/Compaq, but with the Taiwanese PC-clone manufacturers in Sim Lim!
In terms of infrastructure at your disposal and costs, it is true; international universities (by which I mean any university that offers alternatives such as an MSc, and not MS) are waaaay better options than American ones. But in terms of people you get to interact with, I believe American universities still beat the rest; if you select your university properl, you aren't there with the best in the region, but clearly, with the best in the world.
So, in that sense, my advice for the OP would be this:- don't go by countries or college brand-names, but by people. Ultimately, your grad school experience can only be as good as the people, ie, fellow students, lecturers and so on, you hang out with inside and outside the class; just make sure you won't end up in a place where you aren't intellectually stimulated by the rest of the group. Anything else will follow through from that.
Back to the topic though. Actually, there's also a reason #0: with rampant grade inflation, and massive increases in student intake, undergrad in India is just not what it used to be; you can actually get a (good, first-class-upper) degree without too much effort. There just isnt too much to differentiate the good from the rest, so most bright, and moderately bright, students prefer to take the grad school route to improve resumes.
Then there's also reason #3 playing in somewhere: peer pressure. If my sibling, my bestest friend from college, his sibling, his sibling's bestest friend in college and so on have gotten degrees, then I sure would also like to have one. Just the nature of things.
That said, I've also noticed something else; Indians who do their Bachelors in an international university generally don't look at doing a technical masters. They seem to prefer MBA's and challenges in the corporate world like most American grads. So, in that sense, I guess the *real* answer is, you're right, #2: Easy Ticket Out of India. :-)
In conclusion, I'd like to say Goto is considered harmful and that you should never teach that to eight year olds.
Not that you cant get that kick in corporate life, I get it every day, but if I didnt attend all those Intro to Programming Methodologies, Data Structures and Algos classes, I wouldn't have learnt the art of appreciating code. Or even, why certain code needs to be appreciated in the first place.
Reading through all the news pouring in from the region, seems to me that cyclones are, in a sense, cool; the eastern coast of India (particularly the state of Andhra Pradesh) has the second highest rate of cyclones per year in the world, so in a sense, the local government and the Met department is rather tuned to weather situations in the Bay of Bengal. Of course, better governance structures always help; ap.gov.in, for instance, has some redundant bandwidth on which they setup a video-conferencing link connecting all district hq's.
In any case, on a quick glance, there are some holes to picked while working through this website; will post later on this. :-)