If a Simputer ..

If a simputer is a simple computer then a computer is a ...? Ha .. got you there!
Chinmay in this post talks about the new Simputer. Read his post first.

First of all. I like it. It looks good and promises a lot of things. It'll be fun to have (and use) if you can afford it. But I emphasize on fun.

I had visited the PicoPeta website and the website of some other Simputer Licensee maybe 7-8 months back. Then I never felt these guys were anywhere close to launching the product .. and felt like this is another good initiative down the drain. But looks like they pulled a fast one! Let me first congratulate these gusy for the same. A cursory look at the Amida simputer reveals a sleek lil handheld .. at par with the iPaq or maybe any Palm one. It certainly holds it own against the competition and teaches them a thing or two.

But I doubt that the Simputer will achieve what it's creators said they wanted it to. Chinmay gets it right when he says it will be touted probably as a status symbol .. rather than a computer for the masses. Honestly if I wouldn't go for the simputer as my first computer, if I were short on moolah, still I would rather get a second-hand P2 or maybe even a P3 (in a few months?) for the same cost.

Finally ... I fear that the simputer may not be a status symbol of choice. (Ha ha). Reasons?
1. The competition has the same price range AND ..
2. the simputer has a 'Made in India' tag.
Sick as it may sound, I really fear that the 'Made in India' tag may itself go against it. I am not talking about quality etc ... just the tag .. if you want to tout something .. tout something phoren na!

Doordarshan's piracy..

TVR Shenoy talks about Doordarshan's Piracy regarding the forceful wrenching of telecast rights from Ten Sports. I was thinking along the same lines myself since the SC intervened and forced Ten Sports to give rights to DD.
I mean .. what is this? Its like some kind of extortion .. Strangely I have not found anything along these lines in the media as Shenoy also rightly mentions. And I always thought the Indian media was pretty impartial and did not play for the crowd.

Rambo wannabes?

The US and India seem to be conducting joint military exercises with regularity these days. Just a month after the joint AirForce exercises in India .. now we hear of US soldiers learning jungle warfare from their Indian counterparts. This will be conducted in the Indian Army's hush-hush Counter Insurgency and Jungle Warfare school in Mizoram. A Non-NATO ally status seems imminent, after Pakistan got it a while back.
[Related] The Acorn asks whether an ally's ally is an ally?

Did we win yet?

*Baaaaawl* I can't watch the end of the match bcos - I have to take a lab right now .. my poor students can't understand why I am glued to the computer instead of joking and talking with them as usual.
Did u guys see Sachin's catch?? Awesome!!! Inzy was stunned. Hell everybody was stunned.

yo

We won!! Well earned victory. Dravid rocks!!
This is Life in Duluth .. not a care in the world .. watch cricket matches live, enjoy.

decongesting pune roads..

I may .. for obvious reasons .. not be the proper person to talk about Pune traffic conditions, but I have survived in the same for 22 years. A post by Gautam had me thinking. I came back home after an year last august .. and the traffic was worse if anything. Karve road is congested all hours of the day. One solution I have long been stressing upon is paving the road along the Mutha river-bank and opening it properly. It runs almost parallel to Karve Rd and that part of the same can be made a one-way. It would definitely be the swiftest (and cheapest) solution towards easing the traffic up somewhat. (Let the Rs 5000 crore plan be implemented afterwards). The environmentalists are holding up this plan saying it will harm the 'oxygen channel' running along the river. My foot. Any sane person would'nt call it a river in the first place.. and me thinks the benefits far outweigh the downside here.

Maybe thats why this solution had been on the backburner for so long. The PMC has till date spent crores on a plan of Rs. 5000 crore is benficial for everyone involved isn't it? God knows what percentage will go where, and what the final cost would be. Do you?

me is back

Texas trip was awesome. Had a lot of fun for 4-5 days .. thanks to a close friend there. Went to Arlington, Dallas and Austin. I particularly liked Austin .. now ranks high among my list of places I would like to live in. It's beautiful, not too large, not to small, has the right mix of everything.. had dinner at Chuy's in Austin where Bush's daughters were busted 2 years back for trying to purchase alcohol with a fake ID.
Arrgh .. now I am back to the same old grind .. vacation over. Double aargh.

So Long and thanks for all the wish..

First of all thanks everybody for the BirthDay wishes.. and those of you who did'nt .. well theres always next year (11th March). Me thinks I am not getting any txt messages on my cell - so I may have missed a few msgs from some of you. Also, I'm off for a little vacation in Texas... meeting college friends. It'll be a fun reunion. Me will be backon Friday the 19th.

In case you are wondering, the title is stolen and changed from So long and thanks for all the fish from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Ranbaxy shining?

I first became aware of Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd. (RLL) when I was in school.. probably around 4th std .. I was bitten by a dog and my dad (who is a doctor) gave me 3 Rabies Vaccines manufactured by Ranbaxy. Ever since .. for no particular reason I have liked the company.

Ranbaxy has manufacturing facilities in 7 countries and are expanding day by day. They have notable global acquisitions and alliances. A decade ago .. Ranbaxy dared to dream .. to achieve the impossible.. to become a billion dollar company by 2004. Today RLL is India's largest generic drug manufacturer, with annual global sales exceeding $1 billion. Whats impressive is they are trying to shake off the 'generic drug manufacturer' tag and are investing in research facilities heavily. So whats next? $5 billion by 2012 :-)

spammed

aNYa Blogs! has been spammed. I find comments advertising products / services. (Particularly in the old comments) This is not at all acceptable. I will have to block IPs from now on engaging in such shit.
[EDIT] : I have installed MTBlacklist for this blog. The comment spam has been purged. Future spam will suffer the same fate.

oh to sit back and watch..

Suddenly I find myself interested in recent sports events coming up soon ..

The only problem will be having enough time to watch all these .. with this being the last semester and all .. blah blah .. thesis work piling up .. more blah .. lets see..

.. oh and yes -- Happy BDay Chinmay!

me off

I'm off to minneapolis with my 3 roommates!! We have tickets for tonight's NBA game. Minnesota Timberwolves Vs Dallas Mavericks. Yeeha!! (Its gonna be an awesome game - The TWolves are my favourite team .. after that the Mavericks)

Thursday .. theres this Job Fair on the UMN Twin Cities campus - will attend that .. not too hopeful though - any of us. So see ya all on Friday ..

Elexon ka mausam hai

Elections in the world's largest two democracies within 4 months of each other. Time to rejoice. India in Apr-May and the US in Oct. While my interest in the US elections is growing, I am missing out on the election action back in India; being all the way over here and plus my overall schedule keeps me from reading all I want to about the same. General elections in India are always interesting. The BJP is still fielding Vajpayee as the Prime Ministerial candidate. The Congress(I) is floundering and really has no grounds to bark at the NDA except for secularity etcetra. That the economy is doing well despite the govt .. may be true or not .. what matters is it is doing well.

To me, the BJP looks ready to rule the roost. And Bush the US. But only due to the lack of a strong Democratic candidate. Lets wait and watch.