Civilization survived thousands of years without cellphones, and can do so again.
Civilization may or may not survive in your corner of the world, but prosperity in most parts of the world is directly dependent on ready access to mobiles. Which is why I'm mystified by most of the responses here; why does everyone dream up cyberpunk situations when arguing for mobiles? Isn't simply wanting timely information enough of a reason?
Perhaps six months ago, one of my first real girlfriends from the ninth grade in 1989 sent her a message asking how to find me on Facebook, so that we could catch up. Catch up with what?.... We're total strangers by this point with utterly nothing in common, and yet people find it scintillating to imagine this kind of scenario through the magic of Facebook?
Only when you go beyond the cognitive dissonance involved in equating "Why should I keep up with my high-school friends?" with "Why should I contact my ex?" would you ever understand the magic of going through old yearbooks.
Which is not to endorse Facebook, of course, but then your question wasn't about Facebook was it.
Been like this forever.:-) Simply put, Slashdot is the world's largest water-cooler; you're more likely to find whiners in the comments here, than positive folk. Which of course, makes absolutely no statements on humanity in general, seeing as it is that less than 10% of everyone who comes to the site actually posts comments here.
I have no idea about Engadget/ Gizmodo crowds, so I won't comment on why they're more positive than folks here.
Those few words show just how far the tech level of this site [has] fallen...
Au contraire, anonymous posters on this site still seem to be very very effective in getting a reaction out of people through carefully constructed statements attacking people generally held in high esteem. In other words, trolling standards are still very high, thankyouverymuch.;-)
Yes, thank you for pointing it out. I'm only an occassional news-phile, but even I could see that this was a paid-placement with zero relevance to reality. Whenever something new happens, the Empire always fights back; this is one of those salvos.
What is more fascinating, though, that slashbots here seem to have taken the headline (as opposed to the story) hook, line and stinker.
Do you have pictures of what it actually looks like?
Nope, and yes, without actual photos, I admit my point is now looking like a bit of conjecture. Not for lacking of trying though, been trying to google stuff up for some time. Looks like the net and airwaves have been saturated with info coming in only from the police. Really wish the girl would come up with some sort of a statement, preferably a blog post or something; that's the only way she'd ever reach parity with the police's carpet-bombing of the news-waves (and all those silly comments saying that she was attention-mongering; she was, but not at the airport).
But yeah. The photos at boston.com and CNN don't entirely add up to what they're saying. Things are not as clear-cut as some of the comments here seem to be presuming.
While you're busy working up some hate for "them nerds", here's something to think about:- your police is essentially saying, "We'll shoot you down if we feel scared by your t-shirt." I've been to war-zones (Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war), areas with a lot of terrorist activity ("hyper-sensitive districts", in Indian governmental parlance) and as a civilian, have seen action up very close. A bomb went off some 500m away from me once. As recently as three weeks back, I missed a terrorist bomb in a public park by a mere twenty minutes. My workplace has seen at least two bomb hoaxes this year.
And yet, NOWHERE can I imagine the frigging POLICE making threats to the regular public. Worse is the fact that your police isn't just getting away with making such brain-dead threats, but also seems to be getting some significant public support.
What is so scary about airports anyway that warrants such paranoia? We've seen our share of terrorist plots/ hijackings out here, but we still treat airports as a public mall of sorts; I routinely go to the airport for lunch or dinner if I'm in the area.
What you're missing is that they're showing the jacket inside out. The breadboard was _inside_; only the lights were outside.
You know what, I'm not that bothered by the fact that they pulled guns on her. Heck, folks panic, you ask to step up, they screen you, you're let off. No biggie. What is more appalling is how _thoroughly_ those NSA jack-asses are trying to protect their arses on this. Bail? Making a hoodie appear more scary than it really was? Hoax? Wtf?
If you set off a bomb at a gas station or a grocery store, people will still buy gas and groceries.
Spoken like someone who lives in a city or twon that didn't have any terrorist incidents at all. Trust me on this one. I've seen communities going down and not being able to recover because of blasts in eateries and such. Yes, there's the old cliché about countries and communities being resilent and such shit, but that is not entirely true.
Fact is this. It is very easy to give the impression of securing airports. You can't do that to your local delis; there are waaaay too many of those. But in terms of overall impact, I'd say a blast in a mall or some public space is far greater than in an airport.
Did you look at her vest closely? It has been taken inside out by the authorities; the circuit board was inside. You wouldn't have seen anything outside, just blinking lights. Note that the article also says the jacket had the words 'Course VI' on it, something you don't see in the pictures at BB or boston.com
You get the feeling that everyone's trying to cover their backsides. The story is too unbelievable to be true; so if it _does_ turn out to be false, everyone can say, "They said it!"
After all, the media and polity have bashed the Shiv Sena so much so that it is impossible to not hate them after watching the selection bias reporting of the crap-socialist Indian media.
Of all the mindless rants I read in favour of the Sangh Parivar, I find this point the most perplexing.
First, socialism per se isn't really a problem; it's enshrined in the name of our country, and indeed, is part of our Directive Principles of State Policy. Both are part of the Constitution of India, a tome that binds the Republic and defines us in legalo-moralistic terms. It is also a document that can be changed anytime by elected lawmakers, usually by a two-thirds majority vote; indeed, it is instructive to note that neither the Shiv Sena nor the BJP nor any of their partners saw it fit to change this crucial element from the Constitution, even when they had the power to do so.
You may wonder why. One reason, perhaps, is because the Shiv Sena is in itself socialist in tone. Here's a damning fact that people like you don't realize:- _all_ of BJP/Shiv Sena/TDP/AGP/etc's economic policies _are_ socialist. ALL of them are for public healthcare, universal primary schooling, subsidized tertiary education, government-imposed distribution of food grains, vegetables and so on, and equal and complete governmental participation in roads, telecom, transport, rails and just about every sphere you can think of. Heck, the government is in the business of making condoms for fuck's sake, and none of the parties are actually bothered about it all. Go ahead, read up the Shiv Sena's manifesto.
In fact, it is safe to say that laissez-faire libertarianism that you seem to espouse is, in fact, non-existent, in India, and has been so since the Swatantra Party whithered away into non-existence. All of Indian polity is left-of-center liberal in economic terms; it's just that the Communists are further left of everyone else in la-la land.
Second, most of the Indian media actually stands right of existing Indian polity; the Indian Express, which I was ultimately linking to, is actually in favour of free-market capitalism over and beyond what the BJP says or does.
What really perplexes me the most, though, is your apparent presumption that I consume everything that the media propagates. Tell me, why do you presume I can't think critically?
However, the rise of Islamist terrorism in India, coupled with the systematic ethnic cleansing and genocides of Hindus in Kashmir, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several parts of India proper itself
Does your list on ethnic cleansing in the sub-continent include a certain party that had 'lungi hatao pungi bajao ('Remove the lungi (crude slang for south Indians), save the Pungi (Maharashtrians)') as its slogan?
(remember Morichjhanpi, Tripura, Naxalites etc. etc?)
Morichchappi? In West Bengal? That was a bit unexpected to see in your list, seeing as it is that the rest are about insurgents while this is about the government attacking, and blockading, a settler camp in the Sunderbans. But no, don't bother explaining yourself; your next point has so much batshitinsanity that we'll let this pass.
may not particularly enjoy the Shiv Sena's antics, but they have done a lot to emancipate the poor in Maharashtra (something that the moonbat media never reports, obviously), drastically improved the local infrastructure (a much needed boon in a developing country) and provide a much needed balance against the rising tide of radical Communism and Islamist bigotry that plagues out society. Remember, the essense of a modern democracy is the presence of checks and balances.
Let me take a moment to parse all this.
Right, I'm done. You're arguing that Shiv Sena is a counter to radica
Speaking as someone who's an astika and follows Advaita, I've long held the view that Shiv Sena is a bunch of goons who will attack and vandalize anything they see, without really bothering to even think about it. Nothing they've done so far has led to change my views even a little.
I suppose the only thing there to see is if the DoE would succumb to the 'pressure' and actually block Orkut (it's possible, trust me), or, if the Internet Cafe Association of India (or whatever their organization calls itself) organizes itself, and throws up a counter bandh to protest these mofos.
I think this is the main reason behind the recent inflation in number of H1-B applicants.
This is insightful.
This is certainly abuse of the H1-B program!
This isn't.
I work at an IT consultancy firm (not Indian; it is headquartered in Seattle, if you're tracking all this), and am based out of Singapore. I am required to, at times, fly in and out of some neighbouring countries at a very short notice. Now travelling in South East Asia (even for Indian passport-holders) is outrageously simple; you pack your bags, show up at the airport, fly in to, say, Bangkok or Hong Kong, and... that's it. All visas are processed on-arrival, you can stay for a month, and then fly out. It's a similar thing in Europe as well; the Schengen area covers some 17-odd countries, and it's very very easy to travel across countries in these globalized times.
For a variety of reasons (911, huge immigration numbers etc), US is not one of those countries where you can slip in and out quickly. While Wipro etc applying for H1-B's en masse is definitely a loophole, I'd still argue that they're doing it for a very valid reason; it is important for professionals to travel across the world without too much hassle.
You are not allowed to fix ugly code if you feel like it - the client should be ready to pay for that too !!
This isn't really a problem with IT alone; any profession where you charge by the hour ('man-hours') suffers from the same problem. Consultant work is more time-bound, than delivery-based, for very good reasons.
Trust me, tis nothing like cutting edge.
I think you've had a bit of an expectations mismatch. IT consultancy was never about using the best and brightest technology out there; it's about understanding a customer's requirements, both said and unsaid, and about thinking what's the best thing the customers shouldn't do. In that sense, contemporary IT consultancy is closer to M&O from, say, 1980's, than it is to, say, implementing AJAX in that intranet application for that big-shot bank. You really shouldn't be expecting an Accenture or an IBM Global Services or HP Consulting to be in the forefront of technology development, because that is not their job.
I laugh when Bangalore is called the silicon valley of the East!
Yes, Bangalore isn't a 'valley'; it's a plateau that's 1000m above sea-level, so calling it a Silicon Valley isn't really correct. Besides, very few of the companies in Bangalore use silicon chips the way the first wave of tech companies in the San Jose- Sunnyvale area did. So in that sense, you're right; extremely misleading to call Bangalore a valley, much less a silicon valley at that.
However, don't, for a moment, presume that there is no product-development (as opposed to project development, which is what TCS/Wipro/etc specialize in) going on in India. As I see it, that's the next big wave in Indian IT, and for the same reason that starting-up in the (real) Silicon Valley makes sense; proximity to potential customers, closer cultural ties and so on. In any case, Bangalore, I think, is in a much better position than of the other cities in the East are, both in terms of access to talent and markets. Much worse than starting-up in Fresno, if you will, but despite increasing land-prices and a rickety infrastructure, still better than Manila or Ho Chi Minh City.
Now, it would definitely have helped if our universities had that startup-ambience that American universities have, and for sure, it'd have been greatly beneficial if we were able to retain at least _some_ of that graduate population leaving the shores, but yeah, we're getting there.
With all due respect, you're reading too much into my usage of the term, 'circus'.
My point was really about people and veneration. When you name any British/American celebrity, politician or otherwise, the general opinion is a certain amount of familiarity; you are, therefore, like to hear people refer to, say, the American president as George or Bush or Dubya. You aren't really likely to hear people calling him Sir George Bush or, even, Mr George Bush.
In Thailand, they use an arcane dialect while speaking with the royal family. It's a bit like speaking in Shakespearan English with your representatives; 'Sire, I would humbly submit to thee that thy hath maketh wrong policy' or something like that.
There's a lot I admire in the American system, but when I said 'circus', what I really meant 'politico-media circus'. Surely, you'll agree that the _spectacle_ of politicking, if you will, is a performance-art in most liberal-democracies? Things will and can get done, of course, but the sheer fact is that most media-consumers ('audience') find themselves familiarized with celebrities ('actors') on television ('stage'). In Thailand, the king is venerated because he is alienated from media-consumers through multiple means, through divine idolatry, a higher respect and, indeed, a codified edict guaranteeing veneration. Therein lies the difference.
Americans (and Brits, I would presume) might not readily understand this, given that their political space is mostly a circus, but what the Thai king gets is not just love, but respect. He kinda embodies their culture and their identity; they even use a different dialect when addressing the royal family. Heck, the grandfather of the current king, Rama V, is actually venerated as a demi-god; he regularly makes an appearance in most Thai families' prayer rooms, next to Buddha and other gods. This, in turn, is a throwback to the old tradition of treating the king as a devaraja.
Those laws, then, exist not to enforce a single person's ego, but as a way to warn us barangs to not overstep on to the things that the Thais respect.
The king has no policy oversight on anything in Thailand, and hasn't had for decades now. Quite a red-herring to conflate other issues with that of free-speech.
(Not to say I actually support the laws - censorship in any form is bad - but it's important to understand the historical and cultural context within which they exist.)
All I can say is that things have changed quite a bit from the 1980's. I was recently reading in the Pakistani press that Pakistan was placing an embargo on importing phones manufactured in India, and how that would increase the prices of telephones out there. Which, of course, let me wonder as to why the Pakistanis would be interested in importing those electrical bricks I remember from my childhood, those (cant remember the brand names) PSU-churned sets they used to hand out with every new line.
They weren't. They were talking about Nokia handsets.
Now, you might rightfully argue that Nokia, as a brand, isn't Indian, but look at it this way:- close to 25% of all the Nokia phones manufactured in India are exported. This in a country that's already the third largest market for Nokia.
In short, we've lost Indian brand-names, but have gained some world-class production capabilities.
How bad can the HRD funk up things? Well, there's some serious cause for optimism:- the PSU (public sector undertaking, for non-Indians) the article talks about, Semiconductor Complex, is owned by India's space agency, ISRO. Which may or may not mean much, but I wouldn't be too hasty in writing them off.
It's like this:- that, in a 189++ comments thread, yours was one of the few to actually point out that guns are designed to kill people is indicative of the fact that the so-called gun debate in the US is over. Most Americans actually support gun-control, but forget about any meaningful, within-Second-Amendment policy on this.
Yes, that's right folks; the gun-maniacs have won. Arm yourself America (or get Nokia to produce the world's first mobile-cum-mp3-player-cum-0.38-special), it's going to get even bloodier from now on.
(Not American, but have had some training in rifles before in a semi-professional setting.)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, in any place where you cite, it often is. When you have a link that is supposed to say something, it better say it!
Civilization may or may not survive in your corner of the world, but prosperity in most parts of the world is directly dependent on ready access to mobiles. Which is why I'm mystified by most of the responses here; why does everyone dream up cyberpunk situations when arguing for mobiles? Isn't simply wanting timely information enough of a reason?
Only when you go beyond the cognitive dissonance involved in equating "Why should I keep up with my high-school friends?" with "Why should I contact my ex?" would you ever understand the magic of going through old yearbooks.
Which is not to endorse Facebook, of course, but then your question wasn't about Facebook was it.
Been like this forever. :-) Simply put, Slashdot is the world's largest water-cooler; you're more likely to find whiners in the comments here, than positive folk. Which of course, makes absolutely no statements on humanity in general, seeing as it is that less than 10% of everyone who comes to the site actually posts comments here.
I have no idea about Engadget/ Gizmodo crowds, so I won't comment on why they're more positive than folks here.
Au contraire, anonymous posters on this site still seem to be very very effective in getting a reaction out of people through carefully constructed statements attacking people generally held in high esteem. In other words, trolling standards are still very high, thankyouverymuch. ;-)
Yes, thank you for pointing it out. I'm only an occassional news-phile, but even I could see that this was a paid-placement with zero relevance to reality. Whenever something new happens, the Empire always fights back; this is one of those salvos.
What is more fascinating, though, that slashbots here seem to have taken the headline (as opposed to the story) hook, line and stinker.
One word: epicaricacy. [Say no to freude loan-words! ;-) ]
Nope, and yes, without actual photos, I admit my point is now looking like a bit of conjecture. Not for lacking of trying though, been trying to google stuff up for some time. Looks like the net and airwaves have been saturated with info coming in only from the police. Really wish the girl would come up with some sort of a statement, preferably a blog post or something; that's the only way she'd ever reach parity with the police's carpet-bombing of the news-waves (and all those silly comments saying that she was attention-mongering; she was, but not at the airport).
But yeah. The photos at boston.com and CNN don't entirely add up to what they're saying. Things are not as clear-cut as some of the comments here seem to be presuming.
While you're busy working up some hate for "them nerds", here's something to think about:- your police is essentially saying, "We'll shoot you down if we feel scared by your t-shirt." I've been to war-zones (Iran, during the Iran-Iraq war), areas with a lot of terrorist activity ("hyper-sensitive districts", in Indian governmental parlance) and as a civilian, have seen action up very close. A bomb went off some 500m away from me once. As recently as three weeks back, I missed a terrorist bomb in a public park by a mere twenty minutes. My workplace has seen at least two bomb hoaxes this year.
And yet, NOWHERE can I imagine the frigging POLICE making threats to the regular public. Worse is the fact that your police isn't just getting away with making such brain-dead threats, but also seems to be getting some significant public support.
What is so scary about airports anyway that warrants such paranoia? We've seen our share of terrorist plots/ hijackings out here, but we still treat airports as a public mall of sorts; I routinely go to the airport for lunch or dinner if I'm in the area.
Nope. Effectively 18.
What you're missing is that they're showing the jacket inside out. The breadboard was _inside_; only the lights were outside.
You know what, I'm not that bothered by the fact that they pulled guns on her. Heck, folks panic, you ask to step up, they screen you, you're let off. No biggie. What is more appalling is how _thoroughly_ those NSA jack-asses are trying to protect their arses on this. Bail? Making a hoodie appear more scary than it really was? Hoax? Wtf?
Spoken like someone who lives in a city or twon that didn't have any terrorist incidents at all. Trust me on this one. I've seen communities going down and not being able to recover because of blasts in eateries and such. Yes, there's the old cliché about countries and communities being resilent and such shit, but that is not entirely true.
Fact is this. It is very easy to give the impression of securing airports. You can't do that to your local delis; there are waaaay too many of those. But in terms of overall impact, I'd say a blast in a mall or some public space is far greater than in an airport.
Did you look at her vest closely? It has been taken inside out by the authorities; the circuit board was inside. You wouldn't have seen anything outside, just blinking lights. Note that the article also says the jacket had the words 'Course VI' on it, something you don't see in the pictures at BB or boston.com
Genuine noob question here, but is OOXML => .docx? In that case, isn't docx already not backwards-compatible with Word95 etc?
You get the feeling that everyone's trying to cover their backsides. The story is too unbelievable to be true; so if it _does_ turn out to be false, everyone can say, "They said it!"
Of all the mindless rants I read in favour of the Sangh Parivar, I find this point the most perplexing.
First, socialism per se isn't really a problem; it's enshrined in the name of our country, and indeed, is part of our Directive Principles of State Policy. Both are part of the Constitution of India, a tome that binds the Republic and defines us in legalo-moralistic terms. It is also a document that can be changed anytime by elected lawmakers, usually by a two-thirds majority vote; indeed, it is instructive to note that neither the Shiv Sena nor the BJP nor any of their partners saw it fit to change this crucial element from the Constitution, even when they had the power to do so.
You may wonder why. One reason, perhaps, is because the Shiv Sena is in itself socialist in tone. Here's a damning fact that people like you don't realize:- _all_ of BJP/Shiv Sena/TDP/AGP/etc's economic policies _are_ socialist. ALL of them are for public healthcare, universal primary schooling, subsidized tertiary education, government-imposed distribution of food grains, vegetables and so on, and equal and complete governmental participation in roads, telecom, transport, rails and just about every sphere you can think of. Heck, the government is in the business of making condoms for fuck's sake, and none of the parties are actually bothered about it all. Go ahead, read up the Shiv Sena's manifesto.
In fact, it is safe to say that laissez-faire libertarianism that you seem to espouse is, in fact, non-existent, in India, and has been so since the Swatantra Party whithered away into non-existence. All of Indian polity is left-of-center liberal in economic terms; it's just that the Communists are further left of everyone else in la-la land.
Second, most of the Indian media actually stands right of existing Indian polity; the Indian Express, which I was ultimately linking to, is actually in favour of free-market capitalism over and beyond what the BJP says or does.
What really perplexes me the most, though, is your apparent presumption that I consume everything that the media propagates. Tell me, why do you presume I can't think critically?
Does your list on ethnic cleansing in the sub-continent include a certain party that had 'lungi hatao pungi bajao ('Remove the lungi (crude slang for south Indians), save the Pungi (Maharashtrians)') as its slogan?
Morichchappi? In West Bengal? That was a bit unexpected to see in your list, seeing as it is that the rest are about insurgents while this is about the government attacking, and blockading, a settler camp in the Sunderbans. But no, don't bother explaining yourself; your next point has so much batshitinsanity that we'll let this pass.
Let me take a moment to parse all this.
Right, I'm done. You're arguing that Shiv Sena is a counter to radica
They've vandalized far greater things than merely cybercafes. A 1906 copy of Sanacharya's commentary on the Vedas, for one.
Speaking as someone who's an astika and follows Advaita, I've long held the view that Shiv Sena is a bunch of goons who will attack and vandalize anything they see, without really bothering to even think about it. Nothing they've done so far has led to change my views even a little.
I suppose the only thing there to see is if the DoE would succumb to the 'pressure' and actually block Orkut (it's possible, trust me), or, if the Internet Cafe Association of India (or whatever their organization calls itself) organizes itself, and throws up a counter bandh to protest these mofos.
Oh, oops. :|
It sure will differentiate you from the rest.
This is insightful.
This isn't.
I work at an IT consultancy firm (not Indian; it is headquartered in Seattle, if you're tracking all this), and am based out of Singapore. I am required to, at times, fly in and out of some neighbouring countries at a very short notice. Now travelling in South East Asia (even for Indian passport-holders) is outrageously simple; you pack your bags, show up at the airport, fly in to, say, Bangkok or Hong Kong, and... that's it. All visas are processed on-arrival, you can stay for a month, and then fly out. It's a similar thing in Europe as well; the Schengen area covers some 17-odd countries, and it's very very easy to travel across countries in these globalized times.
For a variety of reasons (911, huge immigration numbers etc), US is not one of those countries where you can slip in and out quickly. While Wipro etc applying for H1-B's en masse is definitely a loophole, I'd still argue that they're doing it for a very valid reason; it is important for professionals to travel across the world without too much hassle.
This isn't really a problem with IT alone; any profession where you charge by the hour ('man-hours') suffers from the same problem. Consultant work is more time-bound, than delivery-based, for very good reasons.
I think you've had a bit of an expectations mismatch. IT consultancy was never about using the best and brightest technology out there; it's about understanding a customer's requirements, both said and unsaid, and about thinking what's the best thing the customers shouldn't do. In that sense, contemporary IT consultancy is closer to M&O from, say, 1980's, than it is to, say, implementing AJAX in that intranet application for that big-shot bank. You really shouldn't be expecting an Accenture or an IBM Global Services or HP Consulting to be in the forefront of technology development, because that is not their job.
Yes, Bangalore isn't a 'valley'; it's a plateau that's 1000m above sea-level, so calling it a Silicon Valley isn't really correct. Besides, very few of the companies in Bangalore use silicon chips the way the first wave of tech companies in the San Jose- Sunnyvale area did. So in that sense, you're right; extremely misleading to call Bangalore a valley, much less a silicon valley at that.
However, don't, for a moment, presume that there is no product-development (as opposed to project development, which is what TCS/Wipro/etc specialize in) going on in India. As I see it, that's the next big wave in Indian IT, and for the same reason that starting-up in the (real) Silicon Valley makes sense; proximity to potential customers, closer cultural ties and so on. In any case, Bangalore, I think, is in a much better position than of the other cities in the East are, both in terms of access to talent and markets. Much worse than starting-up in Fresno, if you will, but despite increasing land-prices and a rickety infrastructure, still better than Manila or Ho Chi Minh City.
Now, it would definitely have helped if our universities had that startup-ambience that American universities have, and for sure, it'd have been greatly beneficial if we were able to retain at least _some_ of that graduate population leaving the shores, but yeah, we're getting there.
With all due respect, you're reading too much into my usage of the term, 'circus'.
My point was really about people and veneration. When you name any British/American celebrity, politician or otherwise, the general opinion is a certain amount of familiarity; you are, therefore, like to hear people refer to, say, the American president as George or Bush or Dubya. You aren't really likely to hear people calling him Sir George Bush or, even, Mr George Bush.
In Thailand, they use an arcane dialect while speaking with the royal family. It's a bit like speaking in Shakespearan English with your representatives; 'Sire, I would humbly submit to thee that thy hath maketh wrong policy' or something like that.
There's a lot I admire in the American system, but when I said 'circus', what I really meant 'politico-media circus'. Surely, you'll agree that the _spectacle_ of politicking, if you will, is a performance-art in most liberal-democracies? Things will and can get done, of course, but the sheer fact is that most media-consumers ('audience') find themselves familiarized with celebrities ('actors') on television ('stage'). In Thailand, the king is venerated because he is alienated from media-consumers through multiple means, through divine idolatry, a higher respect and, indeed, a codified edict guaranteeing veneration. Therein lies the difference.
Americans (and Brits, I would presume) might not readily understand this, given that their political space is mostly a circus, but what the Thai king gets is not just love, but respect. He kinda embodies their culture and their identity; they even use a different dialect when addressing the royal family. Heck, the grandfather of the current king, Rama V, is actually venerated as a demi-god; he regularly makes an appearance in most Thai families' prayer rooms, next to Buddha and other gods. This, in turn, is a throwback to the old tradition of treating the king as a devaraja.
Those laws, then, exist not to enforce a single person's ego, but as a way to warn us barangs to not overstep on to the things that the Thais respect.
The king has no policy oversight on anything in Thailand, and hasn't had for decades now. Quite a red-herring to conflate other issues with that of free-speech.
(Not to say I actually support the laws - censorship in any form is bad - but it's important to understand the historical and cultural context within which they exist.)
All I can say is that things have changed quite a bit from the 1980's. I was recently reading in the Pakistani press that Pakistan was placing an embargo on importing phones manufactured in India, and how that would increase the prices of telephones out there. Which, of course, let me wonder as to why the Pakistanis would be interested in importing those electrical bricks I remember from my childhood, those (cant remember the brand names) PSU-churned sets they used to hand out with every new line.
They weren't. They were talking about Nokia handsets.
Now, you might rightfully argue that Nokia, as a brand, isn't Indian, but look at it this way:- close to 25% of all the Nokia phones manufactured in India are exported. This in a country that's already the third largest market for Nokia.
In short, we've lost Indian brand-names, but have gained some world-class production capabilities.
How bad can the HRD funk up things? Well, there's some serious cause for optimism:- the PSU (public sector undertaking, for non-Indians) the article talks about, Semiconductor Complex, is owned by India's space agency, ISRO. Which may or may not mean much, but I wouldn't be too hasty in writing them off.
It's like this:- that, in a 189++ comments thread, yours was one of the few to actually point out that guns are designed to kill people is indicative of the fact that the so-called gun debate in the US is over. Most Americans actually support gun-control, but forget about any meaningful, within-Second-Amendment policy on this.
Yes, that's right folks; the gun-maniacs have won. Arm yourself America (or get Nokia to produce the world's first mobile-cum-mp3-player-cum-0.38-special), it's going to get even bloodier from now on.
(Not American, but have had some training in rifles before in a semi-professional setting.)
I just block ads at source. Ad-free browsing in all three browsers I use, MSIE, Firefox _and_ Opera! :-)
Fair enough point about Firefox extensions, although I'm beginning to like Opera widgets a lot.