[silk] Consciousness

[Bharat Shetty]

Hey folks, I hope you guys are doing good and are surviving one of the
dreaded pandemics in the history of mankind.

I recently finished an interesting book named, "Conscious: A Brief Guide to
the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind" by Annaka Harris.

This was quite an interesting introduction to the nature of consciousness,
the experiments that were being conducted, and why it is super hard to
explain it and the various theories floating around like panpsychism etc.

I also covered a few talks in the public domain such as:
1. David Chalmer's talk - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhRhtFFhNzQ
2. The neuroscience of consciousness by Anil seth etc -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRel1JKOEbI

I would love to know more thoughts, resources, books on this by others.

Cheers,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sat, May 18, 2019 at 10:37 PM Thaths  wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 4:57 PM Bharat Shetty 
> wrote:
>
> > One of the things that came in discussions with the group involved in
> > building the tool was that, the mics on our smart phones are usually good
> > and as such the audio input delivered to the CloudASR (Where speech to
> text
> > happens) is good. Perhaps similar good mic quality may be needed  for
> other
> > devices. I'm hoping the applications of this proliferate to all public
> > places. And also transliteration rolls in slowly for language to
> language.
> > that will be a huge game changer.
> >
> > Also, the team deliberately decided not to support saving of the
> > transcripts in accordance with the privacy laws concerns globally.
> >
>
> There is more announced on Live Transcribe:
>
> https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/16/android-live-transcribe-sound-alerts/
>
> including transcription saving.
>
>
I just saw this. This is incredibly useful for Indian classrooms if the
accent is decipherable. Saving of transcripts will go a long way in
revising what teachers told in classrooms for most of the English based
deaf and hard of hearing students or revise stuff told in public lectures
etc.

As for me, the more I use this app, i get mind blown how much of
interesting conversations happen around me all the time in groups.

This is truly remarkable game changing innovation by Google.

Now wondering if I should get a proper google pixel phone. The only thing
that is making me think is "Is it worth to spend 60,000 INR for a phone
that lasts around 3-4 years max?"

Regards,
- Bharat

Thaths
> --
> Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
> Carl:  Nuthin'.
> Homer: D'oh!
> Carl:  Unless you're crooked.
> Homer: Woo-hoo!
>

Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)

[Bharat Shetty]

> I am waiting for when it becomes available for desktop, for those few of us
> who don't use smart phones and apps. I know it would be a huge timesaver
> for me as a journalist who does a lot of interviews and spends a lot of
> time procrastinating about transcribing and then getting down to the bloody
> thing,
>

One of the things that came in discussions with the group involved in
building the tool was that, the mics on our smart phones are usually good
and as such the audio input delivered to the CloudASR (Where speech to text
happens) is good. Perhaps similar good mic quality may be needed  for other
devices. I'm hoping the applications of this proliferate to all public
places. And also transliteration rolls in slowly for language to language.
that will be a huge game changer.

Also, the team deliberately decided not to support saving of the
transcripts in accordance with the privacy laws concerns globally.

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)

[Bharat Shetty]

>
>
> Rather than using Google doc's speech-to-text dictation as a way of getting
> a transcript of what was said by people in a meeting, a better approach
> might be some sort of accessibility setting in Android that does real-time
> voice to text transcripts (and is also capable of identifying once voice
> from another - so it shows dialog, instead of a wall of text).
>
>
So, what Thaths was suggesting has been released finally by Google, and I'm
able to use it effectively in internal office meetings.

https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/02/real-time-continuous-transcription-with.html

It does well on most Engish transcribing and Kannada as well. A game
changer application!

Cheers,
Bharat

Re: [silk] From 35 years ago, Asimov's predictions for 2019 (and anxperiment for this list)

[Bharat Shetty]

- Bharat


On Thu, Jan 3, 2019 at 11:15 AM Thaths  wrote:

> 5. Though a bigger percentage of the world will be literate than today, it
> will be possible to use the internet without being literate (voice
> recognition, tts)
>

A question about current state of the voice recognition (voice typing by
google). Has it improved to pick up accents in India ?  Can I use it to get
context reliably using google docs which shows the audio to text
translation in real-time during office meetings / conferences etc ?

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

[Bharat Shetty]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2018 at 11:38 PM Landon Hurley  wrote:

> Sorry to delurk with a massive rant but I love this field and Pearl's
> work, and spent the last 18 months being denied my doctorate because I use
> to much maths for a Psych department.
>
> >Anyone else have opinions on why his ideas haven't caught on more
> >generally?
>
>
> There are two connected problems (sorry, this area of statistics is my
> field and raison d'etre, so bear with me) as to why Pearl's work isn't
> universal.
>
>
Thank you for sharing your insights and discussion!

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

[Bharat Shetty]

On Thu, Aug 23, 2018 at 4:54 AM  wrote:

> First, stepping back, https://youtu.be/ajGX7odA87k provides some examples
> of my ML and AI involve too much magical thinking. That jobs with some of
> the points in the Quanta essay. I'm especially sensitive to this because of
> days of AI including a stint in the MIT clinical decision making group
> (over four decades ago). The focus wasn't just on computing but also
> understanding how doctors approached problems. Humans don't do a great job
> either.
>

A big fan of James Mickens types of guys who always call for skepticism and
careful analysis and continual improvement in our mental models of how
things work.


> But when I see
>
> "Three decades ago, a prime challenge in artificial intelligence research
> was to program machines to associate a potential cause to a set of
> observable conditions. Pearl figured out how to do that using a scheme
> called Bayesian networks. Bayesian networks made it practical for machines
> to say that, given a patient who returned from Africa with a fever and body
> aches, the most likely explanation was malaria. In 2011 Pearl won the
> Turing Award, computer science’s highest honor, in large part for this
> work."
>
> I'm wary because in that CDMG we recognized that Bayesian approaches
> didn't work when there wasn't a well-defined space of choices.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is CDMG ?

Regards,
Bharat

[silk] Building intelligent machines with casual reasoning

[Bharat Shetty]

Sharing an intriguing interview with Judea Pearl related to his book "The
Book of Why", a book that I have been reading and enjoying.

"In his new book, Pearl, now 81, elaborates a vision for how truly
intelligent machines would think. The key, he argues, is to replace
reasoning by association with causal reasoning. Instead of the mere ability
to correlate fever and malaria, machines need the capacity to reason that
malaria causes fever. Once this kind of causal framework is in place, it
becomes possible for machines to ask counterfactual questions — to inquire
how the causal relationships would change given some kind of intervention —
which Pearl views as the cornerstone of scientific thought. Pearl also
proposes a formal language in which to make this kind of thinking possible
— a 21st-century version of the Bayesian framework that allowed machines to
think probabilistically.

Pearl expects that causal reasoning could provide machines with human-level
intelligence. They’d be able to communicate with humans more effectively
and even, he explains, achieve status as moral entities with a capacity for
free will — and for evil."

https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-build-truly-intelligent-machines-teach-them-cause-and-effect-20180515/

PS: If there are similar mind-bending and worldview changing books, holler
about them at me.

Regards,
- Bharat

[silk] Information sources that you subscribe to

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi all,

I'm curious to know what high-quality knowledge sources the silk-listers
pay and subscribe to.

These are the ones I've been interested in:
1. stratechery
2. The Ken
3. FactorDaily

Please do let me know if there are any other interesting sources that I
should look at also.

Regards
- Bharat

Re: [silk] ‘Kind’ technology?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, Feb 4, 2018 at 10:04 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan 
wrote:

>
> Kindness when it becomes second nature greatly improves one's quality of
> life.
>

Just adding a few thoughts:

Cheeni's thoughts reminded me of the talks given Tristan Harris:
http://humanetech.com/problem/. Managing this information overload and
increasing attention spans to focus on useful goals is one thing.

Also, as someone who is hearing impaired, I cringe every-time when popular
podcasts without transcripts are published. NetFlix and Youtube in large
numbers have ushered in captions en-masse which do help for majority of the
videos. However in public places (cinemas, airports, railways, hospitals,
office, conferences) there is no inclusive access to the hearing impaired
at large. They are bound to miss the announcements on speakers and oral
stuff. This is a space where kind technology can largely help and become an
enabler in a way it democratizes large sections of the the disabled
population, so that these people do not feel left out.

Regards,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] The end of the teens

[Bharat Shetty]

On Fri, Nov 24, 2017 at 8:35 PM, Udhay Shankar N  wrote:

> I have a request to move this to Saturday 16 Dec. All in favour say aye.
>

+1 Tentative based on work schedule

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] On Lit fests

[Bharat Shetty]

On Wed, Oct 18, 2017 at 5:58 PM, Sidin Vadukut 
wrote:

> Was supposed to be there (as one of the surprisingly nice people) and then
> my passport vanished into the corridors of the home office here in the UK.
>

I have never attended a LitFest earlier, but plan to visit it this time. I
wonder if there will be any book sales around or just the talks and
socializing around etc ?

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Books on History of Bengaluru

[Bharat Shetty]

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 5:13 PM, Venkatesh H R  wrote:

> I second Janaki Nair's Promise of the Metropolis. Also - Askew by TJS
> George has great vignettes on the birth of Bangalore's standing food joints
> (inspired by Singapore). Also, The Caravan magazine cover story by RAghu
> Karnad a few years ago, and for those who want something out of the way -
> Jayaprakash Satyamurthy's Weird Tales of Bangalore.
>
> This is why I love this list. Thanks for the great suggestions!

- Bharat

Re: [silk] Books on History of Bengaluru

[Bharat Shetty]

On Mon, Oct 2, 2017 at 11:59 AM, Naresh  wrote:

> I have the book and yu can borrow it.Are yu in Blr?
>
>
Thanks. Yes, I'm based in Bengaluru. If you have other suggested books
also, would like to borrow them also :)

Regards
Bharat

[silk] Books on History of Bengaluru

[Bharat Shetty]

Yo folks,

I've been reading part-preview of Aditi De's "Multiple City, writings on
Bangalore" on google books and like what I read so far. I picked the name
of this book from this excellent scroll article:
https://scroll.in/article/850610/what-three-second-hand-bookshops-on-the-same-street-say-about-bengalurus-reading-culture

I was wondering if someone knows where to get second hand cheap version of
this book (searched Blossoms without success) or if I could borrow from
someone who has this book on this list.

Also, I'd like to know recommendations on books that cover history of
Bengaluru in an unbiased way.

Thanks,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] Assimilating huge information

[Bharat Shetty]

On Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 9:45 AM, Tim Bray tb...@textuality.com wrote:
 Of course there is too much for anyone to master; but this has been true of
 the flow of human discourse for some centuries.  My approach is simple:

 1. I follow carefully-chosen people, where by “follow” I mean “pay
 attention to via email or blog or Twitter or whatever other channels they
 use”.  Now, I will admit that in recent years I have found Twitter
 particularly useful as a tool in doing this.  But I still use an RSS reader.

 2. I am aggressively incompletist; there is no point scrolling back much,
 in any channel, ever.  If you need to see something, it will find its way
 to your attention.


Thanks for your thoughts, Tim/Bruce.

Regards,
Bharat

[silk] Assimilating huge information

[Bharat Shetty]

This is a question that has been bothering me. Ever since I learned
how to use the internet, the huge corpora of information out there in
the form of blogs, articles, journals in addition to countless books
keeps me wondering about the vast infinite knowledge out there to be
dissected. I have learned to cull various useless sources mostly
popular social media such as Twitter, Facebook (deleted account) etc.

Given this, I'm curious, how do you guys process non-technical
information or information not related to your work, research outside
of your work hours ?

Any insights that helped you folks to perfect the process of reading
and acquiring information better ? How long/often do you guys read
every day/week ? Please share your thoughts on this.

Cheers,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] Assimilating huge information

[Bharat Shetty]

 Take my advice with a pinch of salt. Having too much media to consume is
 something that I still struggle with (my bedside table of books I want to
 read is overflowing, I have ~40 unlistened to podcast episodes on my phone,
 I have 30+ unread long form articles that I sent to my Kindle to read later
 at my leisure).

 1. You don't have to subscribe to every blog, journal, subreddit,
 newspaper, etc. Subscribe to a handful of interesting re-bloggers/sources
 like Kottke, bOingbOing, MeFi and you will know most of what's happening
 with the world.

 2. Don't be a complete-ist.  You don't have to read everything from your
 favorite sources. Read a day or two's worth of posts from your sources.
 Anything older than that is probably no longer relevant.

 3. Learn to skim. A big portion of posts even from your favorite sources
 are likely posts that would be without value if you were to look at it a
 year from now. Learn the art of reading the truly important and skimming or
 ignoring the rest.

 4. Unplug your Cable TV.

 5. Unplug from the Internet every once in a while. Going for a walk, go
 hike in a forest, go camp by a river side. Do it often (every couple of
 weeks). For consumed Information to become Knowledge and eventually Wisdom,
 it needs to be digested. You cannot digest if you keep consuming more
 Information.

 6. You don't have to know that something has happened the instant it
 happened. If important stuff is happening in the world, you will become
 aware of it eventually and it would not matter that you heard about it
 within minutes or days of the event.

 7. Try this experiment: Completely cut off from your Email and Social Media
 and News sources for a week or a month. Does life still go on? Did you
 really miss much?

 8. It is far more important to be a kind, gentle, humane, mindful person
 than a person who knows the most facts.

@Thaths: Thanks for sharing this advice. Really liked the last point
and the structuring in your reply. That said, points 1,2,3,5 are those
which I haven't yet mastered. Time to start doing that :-)

@Deepa/Udhay: Thanks for sharing your comments.

[silk] Crowdsourcing captioned movie theatre info

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi all,

Pardon posting this form here. However, I did ask Udhay for permission
to post here.

So here it goes:

I want to crowd-source the list of theaters (Bengaluru for now) which
shows movies along with English captions so that hearing impaired
community benefits.

Please fill in your feedback here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/19fS6fqB6hfgpGP3x27F0jZbAMdyNTHCF-6nzZ7EV8j4/viewform

Cheers,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] Aihole Pattadakal

[Bharat Shetty]

On Fri, Nov 21, 2014 at 10:46 AM, Shoba Narayan sh...@shobanarayan.com
wrote:

 Dear Listers and Uday (hope this is appropriate to ask on this list)
 I need some suggestions in putting together a trip for 10 people to Hampi,
 Badami, Aihole and Pattadakal.
 Can you recommend a travel agent who will do everything? Train or Air
 bookings, hotel, excellent guide, and local cars.
 We have 3 days and 4 nights.
 Thanks

 I don't know if this would help. But, do try asking them  -
http://www.gomowgli.in/passes/khardantu

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Podcasts with transcripts

[Bharat Shetty]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 2:42 AM, Radhika, Y. radhik...@gmail.com wrote:

 ​I am not too sure of the kinds of podcasts you are interested in but Haiku
 Chronicles is a great series on Haiku...could spend a long time listening.
 I often listed to Ira Glass on This American Life too.​


This American Life is on my radar. Btw, one of the contributors to This
American Life has a brilliant podcast series related to a true life story
based on a 1999 case at Baltimore at http://serialpodcast.org/. It brings
back the memories of this cult TV show The Wire as you listen to the show
or read the transcripts/ discussion here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/

Re: [silk] Podcasts with transcripts

[Bharat Shetty]

On Wed, Nov 19, 2014 at 12:56 AM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Thu Nov 13 2014 at 2:07:32 PM Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com
 wrote:

  I recently began reading the transcripts for audio podcasts for these:
 
  1. Roman Mars podcasts:
  http://99percentinvisible.org/category/episode/page/15/
 
  2. Freakonomics podcasts:
  http://freakonomics.com/category/freakonomics-radio/transcripts/podcast-
  transcripts/page/5/
 
  3. BBC A History of the World podcasts:
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/transcripts/episode1/


 Hey Bharat,

 In a recent episode of the podcast Planet Money I heard that they now have
 transcripts of episodes available.

 Planet Money used to be an excellent podcast. It came of age during the
 Financial Crisis in 2008 giving a play-by-play explanation of what was
 happening as Lehman collapsed, the money market fund broke the buck, etc.
 Over the last couple of years several of the reporters have left Planet
 Money for other shows and it is not as good as it used to be (fewer
 episodes, more repeats), but still, it is not bad.


 http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/11/18/364949002/what-did-he-say-about-a-one-legged-bobcat?utm_medium=RSSutm_campaign=planetmoney


Ah awesome. Thanks Thaths! Added to my queue!

Re: [silk] What book changed your mind?

[Bharat Shetty]

 http://chronicle.com/article/What-Book-Changed-Your-Mind-/149839/ of
 people talking about the books that changed their minds made me wonder

 Which book made *you*, dear Silk lister, change your mind? How?

 A handful of books have had such an impact on me. I need to whittle it down
 to one.


 Interesting read. I need to do this also. Similar to this I'm wondering if
one can have a list of movies/Tv shows as well. Schindler's List was one
such powerful movie for me and I went on a massive wikipedia reading
marathon of everything related to the world wars for months!

PS: The annual Silk List Book Recommendations thread is starting early this
 year.


I'm looking forward to this thread!

Regards,
Bharat

[silk] Podcasts with transcripts

[Bharat Shetty]

I recently began reading the transcripts for audio podcasts for these:

1. Roman Mars podcasts:
http://99percentinvisible.org/category/episode/page/15/

2. Freakonomics podcasts:
http://freakonomics.com/category/freakonomics-radio/transcripts/podcast-transcripts/page/5/

3. BBC A History of the World podcasts:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/about/transcripts/episode1/

I'm wondering if there are other podcasts which are very interesting and
highly informative. I'd like to know some of them in the hope there might
be transcripts floating around for those. So please pour the collections of
podcasts that you are fond of!

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Podcasts with transcripts

[Bharat Shetty]

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 10:13 AM, Charles Haynes charles.hay...@gmail.com
wrote:

 I 3 99% Invisible. You should treat yourself to the audio, Roman Mars has
 a great voice.

 -- Charles


I'd love to. But the thing is, since I'm a hearing impaired guy, cannot
treat myself to that unfortunately. Hence the mail in the hope that a lot
of audio podcasts out there have transcripts.

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Subtitles for movies in Bengaluru theatres

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, Nov 9, 2014 at 5:43 PM, Amitha Singh amithasi...@gmail.com wrote:

 Cinemax (now PVR) at central, belandur, bengaluru has subtitles for big
 hero 6.
 There, Udhay... I've unlurked for a bit.


Thanks for all these information. There seems to be an increase in theatres
showing English subtitles these days. I have got confirmation that Fame
Shankarnag and Cinepolis in Meenakshi Mall in Bengaluru are showing
Interstellar with full movie subs.

I might try to create a crowdsourced site so that folks can add the
theatres listings playing movie subtitles. The only thing I'm not sure is
if this would be legal ? i.e. would the multiplex owners be ok with this ?

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Subtitles for movies in Bengaluru theatres

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Ashwin Nanjappa ashwi...@gmail.com wrote:

 With regards to Interstellar, according to Raja Sen's review it seems to be
 playing in Indian theatres with subtitles:
 http://rajasen.com/2014/11/07/interstellar/


Ah thanks! I have dropped a mail to Raja Sen enquiring about details of the
theatre he saw Interstellar at!

Regards,
Bharat

Re: [silk] Subtitles for movies in Bengaluru theatres

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 9:25 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com
wrote:

 Saw Interstellar with subtitles in Bombay at PVR phoenix yesterday.

 The IMAX screen too


Woah! that's nice. Btw, oops, I forgot to mention that I reside in
Bangalore :-) Hope there is one PVR around that is showing this with full
subtitles.

Regards,
Bharat

[silk] Subtitles for movies in Bengaluru theatres

[Bharat Shetty]

I'm wondering if anyone come across any movie theatres playing with
subtitles ? I'm particularly keen on watching Interstellar with subs.

A friend pinged me on Twitter regarding this and I was reminded of the
efforts we both tried to do unsuccessfully a couple of years. Our plan was
to get data of movie listings from theatres around in Bangalore/Delhi and
show which movies air with subtitles similar to Captionfish.com (set your
location to Cupertino, CA to see listings).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM5UgK5ZXrQ gives an idea how this system
works.

We tried to speak with heads of several cinema outlets such as PVR to pilot
this project in India. But things never worked out. PVR indicated that most
people in India were averse to watching movies with subs on screens etc. In
the longer run, we had to drop off the project.

So if anyone has seen subs in movies in Bengaluru or elsewhere in India
give me a shout!

Regards,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] Books and libraries

[Bharat Shetty]

On Wed, Nov 5, 2014 at 7:35 AM, Shoba Narayan sh...@shobanarayan.com
wrote:



 
 Message: 12
 Date: Mon, 3 Nov 2014 16:09:19 +0530
 From: Nikhil Mehra nikhil.mehra...@gmail.com
 To: Intelligent Conversation silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Subject: Re: [silk] Books and libraries
 Message-ID:
 
 caabxohj7pfqceqca434+kx1kqqhh5nl+fuv27vpgqer...@mail.gmail.com
 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

 Just hearing that Eloor is still around is a massive nostalgia fix. Thanks!




 I too go to Eloor Library on Infantry Road.  The men there know exactly
 where each book is (kinda like Blossom) which I enjoy.  I also am a member
 of Just Books but the staff at my Frazer Town branch isn’t knowledgeable.

 Nikhil: when you return to Bengaluru next, you must visit Atta Galatta.
 It is the best bookstore— notwithstanding the old stalwarts on Church
 street— in the newly renamed Bengaluru and since I am from Chennai and can
 deal with the name change, I can deal with Bengaluru as well.  The change
 to Gulbarga however is a mouth full and I cannot remember it.

 Don’t know much about naval history books, but I subscribe to this podcast
 called “Military History Podcast” which is basically one man describing
 (rather dourly but succinctly) different things about military.  Stumbled
 upon it when I was researching Ninjas.


Thanks everyone for the nice recommendations. I'm close to finishing the
No Time to Hide, by now. Atta Galatta sounds interesting and I must go
there to see if there are any Kannada books that I can get. Though Eloor
sounds tempting, it is quite far from where I live. Sometimes, I wish there
were nice public libraries in India like the US setups.

Regarding podcasts, I hear they've been quite the rage since the death of
RSS as a subscriber medium recently. But, one thing that I hate about
podcasts is that they are not accessible to people like me with hearing
impairedness without transcripts.

That said, I wonder what would one recommend as a nifty gadget to read
ebooks these days ?
I'm divided between Amazon's latest ebook reader - Kindle Voyage and
Google's Nexus tablet.

Cheers,
Bharat

[silk] Books and libraries

[Bharat Shetty]

I was curious about these questions of late:

Anyone on this lists borrow books regularly from libraries in Bengaluru ?
Are there any ebook lending libraries around in Bengaluru ?

That said, which has been the best historical fiction that one would
recommend to me ?

Non-fiction recommendations are also welcome. I've been reading Greenwald's
No Place to Hide as well as Men of Mathematics, both of which are very
fascinating reads.

Regards,
- Bharat

Re: [silk] Books and libraries

[Bharat Shetty]

-- B

On Mon, Nov 3, 2014 at 7:51 AM, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com
wrote:

 I was curious about these questions of late:

 Anyone on this lists borrow books regularly from libraries in Bengaluru ?
 Are there any ebook lending libraries around in Bengaluru ?

Sorry, scratch the ebook library thing which happened in a moment of
cognitive failure. I meant to say can people share ebooks around legally
amongst each other ?



 That said, which has been the best historical fiction that one would
 recommend to me ?

 Non-fiction recommendations are also welcome. I've been reading
 Greenwald's No Place to Hide as well as Men of Mathematics, both of
 which are very fascinating reads.

 Regards,
 - Bharat

Re: [silk] Anyone who works 40-hour weeks?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hmm,

Nice article. I've been guilty of shooting beyond 40 hours a week
easily despite efforts to curb it.

I think it boils down to these also most of the times (may be limited
to my limited experience of working in only software companies):

1. Working on something where you are a pro in terms of skills. Lesser
the pro you are, you have to spend time reading up on many stuff and
mastering the stuff that you counter in your daily work before
implementing and executing those stuff.

2. Culture and such. Depends on the environment in your company or
work place. Sometimes you need support from others to finish tasks
asap. Any laxness on others part (for eg: late reviews, late
discussions etc) makes it only tougher for you etc.

I wonder if there are any Startup guys and Code coolies on this list.
Usually, these are the folks whose work hours extends past 40 hour
limit from what I've observed. Anyone from this category wanna share
your experiences on this and prove me wrong ?

Regards,
- Bharat | https://twitter.com/cerebraltangent



On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 8:37 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 Physically well rounded - certainly

 --
 srs (blackberry)

 -Original Message-
 From: Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com
 Sender: silklist-bounces+suresh=hserus@lists.hserus.net
 Date: Mon, 19 Mar 2012 20:34:26
 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Reply-To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Subject: Re: [silk] Anyone who works 40-hour weeks?

 On Mon, Mar 19, 2012 at 8:13 PM, Srini RamaKrishnan che...@gmail.com wrote:

 I see pillars of individual identity like a stool with legs. The more legs
 you have, the more stable the stool is. If you invest all your identity into
 only one pillar, then what happens when it breaks away is the stool loses
 balance.

 I concur, but of course you knew that, as this is one of the topics
 that has recurred many many times over the course of many many beers
 over the years. :)

 IOW, a well rounded personality is a (physically and psychologically)
 healthy one. There is a reason why cliches become cliches...

 I wonder what Thaths has to add to this.

 Udhay
 --
 ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2011

[Bharat Shetty]

Amen to the first book Ashwin suggested. It gives a fascinating
history and introduction to how randomness became important and
critical in our lives in a prose understandable by layman :-) If
others who have read this book know any other similar books, please
put their names here.

I also recommend his other book with Stephen Hawking that is quite a
decent read and talks about the various theories prevalent in field of
physics and cosmos and how the universe came into existence etc.

@Thaths: plz2inform me as well if you are visiting BLR sometime :-)

Regards,
- B

On Mon, Dec 5, 2011 at 7:15 AM, Ashwin Kumar ashwi...@gmail.com wrote:


 On 5 December 2011 00:16, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:

 On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Brij Blog brij.bl...@gmail.com wrote:

 Hello fellow members,

 I am a new member here and am excited to be part of this group. Thanks to
 Sankarshan for introducing me to this group and Udhay for adding me to it.


 Welcome, Brij.


 On 4 December 2011 23:35, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:

 Has anyone read The Immortals Of Meluha by Amish Tripati:


 http://www.landmarkonthenet.com/books/the-immortals-of-meluha/9789380658742


 Welcome Brij.

 Sadly, my reading this year is at an all time low. The only ones I have
 read, and can recommend are -

 Drunkard's Walk - How Randomness Rules our Lives
 http://www.amazon.com/Drunkards-Walk-Randomness-Rules-Lives/dp/0375424040

 And, this recommendation may not go well at all -
 A Song of Ice and Fire Series

 :)

 Thaths, please to be notifying dates of India visit, and if you will be
 visiting Bangalore.

 ~ashwin

Re: [silk] Recommended Reading from 2011

[Bharat Shetty]

Wow! That is a whole truckload of book recommendations from everyone.
You guys just made my flipkart wishlist
[http://www.flipkart.com/wishlist/colono] longer :)

Meanwhile wrt logicomix, it sure was an enjoyable read. But, be sure
to read this as well -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logicomix#Historical_accuracy (Read the
cited links numbered 7 and 8).

- Bharat

On Wed, Nov 30, 2011 at 8:10 PM, Sumant Srivathsan suma...@gmail.com wrote:
 Sacco and Delisle have vastly different styles but are both very
 enjoyable--would also add Deslile's Pyongyang to the list. And while we're
 on graphic novels, Blankets by Craig Thompson and Stitches, by David Small.

 Speaking of Thompson, Habibi is extraordinary. Also second Stitches. And for
 something slightly different, David Mazzuchelli's Asterios Polyp and
 Logicomix, a comic bio of Bertrand Russell.

 Is Beatzo on Silk?

 --
 Sumant Srivathsan
 http://sumants.blogspot.com

Re: [silk] Silk Meet?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello,

Sorry for the late notice. I will be there too. And I might bring some books
although my collection is not that impressive.

Regards,
- Bharat


On Fri, May 7, 2010 at 6:50 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:

 Xxxrum wrote, [on 5/6/2010 11:26 PM]:

  Hey Udhay
  Till what time are yu going to hang out?also send me yr mobile number

 I will ask for a table for 7-8 people at Silver Wok [1] at around
 7:30pm. We should be there a while.

 Anyone who needs directions can call the restaurant, or me at 98450 74927.

 Oh, by the way, I will bring some books to distribute. Anyone else who
 wishes to may also do so.

 Udhay

 [1]

 http://bangalore.burrp.com/listing/silver-wok_richmond-road_bangalore_bars-pubs-restaurants/158184851
 --
 ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

Re: [silk] curious about whether this is a reasonable article...

[Bharat Shetty]

I second Biju, I believe lots of us have better things to do than
calling names, or carrying out ad hominem personal attacks targeted at
a single person.

-- Bharat

On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Fri, Sep 25, 2009 at 3:18 PM, Indrajit Gupta bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote:
  Was this proposed by Kiran K?
  I would take any theories promoted by Kiran very
  judiciously indeed; he tends to leap before he looks.

 You have this tendency to grossly understate.

 Lukhman.


 I know; I was just being excruciatingly polite. What I think of his posts 
 (not of him, his messages only) won't bear reproduction on a forum such as 
 this.

 Can we avoid the gratuitous name calling?

 -- b

Re: [silk] Recommend books to buy in India

[Bharat Shetty]

First of all, sorry to Thaths for putting a reply that is not going to
help his original question to recommend books. All other books that
have been suggested look extremely interesting and I look forward to
reading them as well as hear reviews/discussions on them.

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 11:51 PM, lukhman_khanlukhman_k...@yahoo.com wrote:

 One wonders what happens to those people in the BJP who read it.

I don't think lots of people in BJP/Congress or mainstream political
parties will have the ability to grasp Jaswant Singh's book. And
Shashi Tharoor has been tweeting about this and I don't think he has
read the book before indulging in preaching of the worse kind that has
established his true politician colors.

And I also wonder what were the Congress people wondering when they
banned  The Satanic Verses, Nine Hours to Rama and James Laine’s
Shivaji books etc - forget reading them. The present government has
weird views on internet. The weird BJP didn't do anything to Arun
Shourie who was beat black and blue after he released books on
Ambedkar. It would have been same as Jaswant saga if Shourie was a BSP
party guy.

If one want to read Jaswant's book they can get it in Karnataka for
now and I look forward to getting it asap.

- Bharat

Re: [silk] And all the yankees go OM!

[Bharat Shetty]

 It's a neat trick. Perhaps a magazine writer here can take it up to show
 that the rice growing in Punjab is evidence of Tamizh or Bengali
 colonisation of the Indus plain.

ROFL. I'm reminded of this chap called Aakar Patel who said Indians
are opportunists and don't give back to society because of Hinduism
and used some hi-funda stuffs like Hobbesian trust etc in his article
for LiveMint.

http://www.livemint.com/articles/2009/07/02203128/Why-Indians-don8217t-give-b.html

-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Is voter ignorance killing democracy?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello,

This book takes into consideration arguments about similar questions. One of
the most interesting books I've read so far. You might want to check out
this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=13081323

Regards,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Shiv,

Some clarifications.

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 12:44 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote:
 In the original post that defended Modi's actions I do not recall Bharat
 Shetty describing himself as either Hindu, or Hindutva or
 even Hindutvabadi (Hindutva-baddie :D )
Neither did I tell, what leanings I know people have, nor I used any
other terminologies which I felt was irrelevant here. But was still
accused of using the words that extreme Hindus use. Despite my strong
refusal to be branded into two sides, and offering examples of what
exactly will be pseduo-secularism, some people's comments made me sad
in a way. I must confess that at one point I did look into mirror and
asked myself was I a murderer, endorser of a Genocide ? Most people on
this list might view this as outpouring of emotions. But I'm sure
anyone who would be accused of defending a murderer would feel what
I've felt.

 If you would like to retrace the sequence of events, Bharat Shetty defended
 Modi, but, as I stated did not identify himself as either Hindu,
 or Hindutva or even Hindutvabadi
Nope, I did not defend Modi. I spoke from development plank only. I
understand that he has allegations on him and for which he surely owes
an explanation sometime in the future. I would like to repeatedly tell
I offered a viewpoint why Zainab's father might have thought high of
Modi from development plank. Please. Shiv, in a way you should see
that my thoughts on Modi are based on what most people do and what
I've read about him. It might have appeared defense of Modi, but the
intent was not to. I feel if I had omitted that Hindutva card
statement, all this would not have been written, with people
intentionally or unintentionally lying traps to which they got sucked
and so on. I will mostly keep that in mind next time.

 You need to ask yourself if you believe this to be true. No harm if you do
 believe it to be true. It is a viewpoint. But recall that when all
 Hindutvadis can be dubbed as apologists or representatives of murderers, the
 same argument can be conveniently applied to other people in other contexts
 to reach equally spurious conclusions.
This was what I wanted the people to realize. And I'm looking for the
day all this stops, and the division of Indian society as Majority and
Minority should stop. Most of the people here will be surprised to
hear, and probably cannot take easily that it is the BJP manifesto
which has mentioned this for first time that they do not support the
concept of majority/minority segregation in India. Now, please don't
ask me do you really think so that the BJP is a party committed to
this etc. That time will explain.

 Why not allow all viewpoints to be aired?
Exactly. And, I never wanted to be drawn into the riots perspective
but only the developmental plank, but was sucked into explaining
everything and offering counter viewpoints, which some people took as
if I was defending genocides, murders etc. As Divya said earlier,
Congress is just the lesser evil now, but that doesn't mean they
should not owe explanations for their shoddy mismanagement of the
country all these fifty years, corruption, poverty etc.

Regards,
-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

IG,

-- I am arguing against Bharat making the mistake of those who admired
Hitler, and before him, Mussolini, the original model, for making the
trains run on time.

Strongly agree with most of your points. But I do not like this,
anyways. I did not champion Modi nor do I admire Modi. If you felt so,
it wasn't to be, honestly.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 5:10 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote:



 --- On Tue, 19/5/09, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: ss cybers...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?
 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Date: Tuesday, 19 May, 2009, 9:55 AM
 On Monday 18 May 2009 10:14:56 pm
 Bonobashi wrote:
   there is nothing hypocritical in my condemnation
 of the Gujarat massacres,
  and that you can use this only against a specific
 party and specific
  individuals from that party and from elsewhere who
 have actually
  demonstrated the hypocrisy that you have rightly
 pilloried.
 
  The point? Not everybody falls within your
 classification, and it does not
  seem logical to use arguments which depend on these
 categories as universal
  categories.
 
  Now it would be interesting for you to state those
 other issues which are
  being suppressed under the Modi smoke-screen. Please
 go ahead and list
  them, and see how secularism or its absence affects
 those issues. Or our
  responses to those issues.

 IG I will try and address the following issues in my reply
 (and will hopefully
 answer your questions as well).

 1) I will try and illustrate why the use of what I term as
 a torn shirt
 versus open fly argument leads inexorably into a slippery
 slope where
 anything can be connected up with anything else leading to
 irreconcilable
 argument without the ability to see some important
 issues.

 2) I will also try and show why the views you have
 expressed, while being
 valid, still count as pseudosecular in their ability to
 obfuscate and
 suppress certain opinions.

 3) How the suppression of certain inconvenient viewpoints
 has a negative
 effect on Indian society today.

 if you felt personally targeted by my comments, I must
 admit that my
 comments (while not targeted at you personallly) were meant
 to hurt anyone
 who counters what is seen as a Hindutva argument with a
 reminder that Modi
 represents genocide.




 i don't think any one of us on this list needs a reminder
 that Modi stands
 accused of representing genocide. I don't think anyone on
 this list is a
 supporter or abettor of murder.

 Let me merely point out how you have fallen into the
 standard Hindutva trap by
 raising the Modi is a killer card as soon as your
 Hindutva detection
 meter sounds a warning. But you will have to listen to a
 fundamntalist Hindu
 viewpoint that I will state here because this is exactly
 what is said (and
 let me point out that is is another egregious example of
 torn shirt versus
 open fly - where one fact does not make another irrelevant
 or false)

 Al Beruni has documented the murder of Hindus in the past.
 There are records
 of other massacres of Hindus including that of 500 brahmins
 in Melkote.
 Despite this, I will explain why would it be wrong for a
 Hindutvadi to call
 all Muslims murderers on the basis of documented history.

 No matter who committed murder in the past there are two
 incontrovertible
 facts:

 1) All Muslims are not murderers and do not support or abet
 murder
 2) For all the murder that was commited by some people, a
 lot of innocent
 people are being smeared merely for representing a
 different viewpoint

 Now apply that to Hindutva and BJP

 1) All Hindutvadis and BJP supporters are not murderers and
 do not support or
 abet murder
 2) For all the murders commited by Modi and his goons, a
 lot of innocent
 people are being smeared merely for representing a
 different viewpoint.

 The pseudosecular argument is as follows:

 You represent Hindutva. Modi represents Hindutva. Modi is
 a murderer, and
 therefore your opinions coincide with that of a murderer.
 No decent human
 would agree wth you. You need to shut up

 The counter argument made by Hindutvadis is similar:

 Islam is a murderous religion. Muslim opinions represent a
 murderous
 religion. And your support to them represents support of
 murder and Hindu
 genocide. You do not represent real secularism when you
 fail to criticize
 genocide by Muslims in the past, while you criticize murder
 by Hindus more
 recently. You are pseudosecular. You need to shut up
 yourself

 This is the slippery slope that you are getting into when
 you use Modis
 guilt to suppress an opinion expressed by somenone else -
 in this case Bharat
 Shetty.

 How does all this impact Indian society? How is
 pseudosecularism as damaging
 to society as a misrepresentation of all Muslims as
 fundamentalists?

 You and me and everyone else on this list, as decent,
 secular people claim
 to fully understand the angst of religious minorities

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

IG,


 And if you agree with me, what's there left to talk about? what's there left 
 to do but decay slowly in place?
Don't worry, you have company along with me in the decaying slowly in
place category. Everyday I read some depressing stories around the
world, it only makes me want to perish asap from the face of this
earth :-)

 What an unlovely prospect!
No comments, I hope you get your fair share of ignorant people to stir
the kettle pot magic of your's ;)

Regards,
-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Venerable IG,

 Don't be stupid, it wasn't meant personally. I was attacking your views, not 
 you personally.
Sire, I know and read clearly that you mentioned that I didn't mean
directly whatever I told. But I would to state even if I expressed my
views, it was not meant to champion modi even indirectly also. Simple
as that. I just went about saying that it is undeniable he is doing
some development, thats it. And, when I said that it was never meant
to glorify and side-step Modi's  past actions, whichever he is alleged
to have committed. I also never said you are attacking me personally.

 I am fond, very fond of Shiv. One of the few people without cant and 
 hypocrisy.
 That doesn't stop me from looking at the views he's expressed, and saying out 
 loud what I feel.  Sometimes we agree. Other times, I keep quiet. Unless he 
 says something outrageous, like he did.
Absolutely. Why you must stop. Did anyone ask you to stop? You should
go on explaining your stand like I did. And your one liners or some
words I used, sometime do confuse as to what you/I actually meant and
then you or I would need to explain in clearer posts, which you did
and I believe I did also. Fair only.

 Likewise, if you think my views suck, say so. I don't feel personal about it.
No they don't suck. I know you are a guy who wouldn't take stuffs
personally. And I also never felt personal for anything said on this
thread. :-)

 Except if it's Chetan. Now Chetan comes under the classification of game. For 
 historical reasons. He can be guaranteed to provide entertainment. Just as 
 soon as I finish making you wish you hadn't been born, I have some stuff in 
 the kettle for him.
Heh, for this pun,  I don't think ever you can make me feel like I
hadn't born, though I myself want to disappear fast from the face of
this earth. Forget thinking about stirring some kettle magic on Chetan
even for entertainment, giving advance sarcasm filled attacking
signals doesn't help you ;)

Regards,
-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

IG,

 'Sire' normally is used of one's father. Is there something you know that I 
 don't? How old are you? Does it compute?
I thought sire is also used as a mark of respect. Correct me if I'm
wrong. As for age, I',m half of your age actually, assuming you are
around 40's ?

 Did that final smiley signify that these were friendly remarks? I like to 
 know if I am consuming friend or foe, or just personally-taken stuff.
Oh, come on. You are a consuming friend, not foe or personal material stuff :-)

I look forward to read more posts from you on various topics in coming days.

Regards,
-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Zainab,

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:05 AM, Zainab Bawa bawazaina...@gmail.com wrote:

 Moreover, there are numerous rationalities at play when it comes to a
 voting decision. My father, whose factory was burnt down during the
 riots of 1993 and who was perhaps most paranoid when Gujarat riots of
 2002 happened, kept remarking since yesterday, 'BJP lost because of
 Advani. They should have projected Modi as Prime Minister, then it
 would have been better. How do I interpret this remark and the
 rationales behind it? [This is not a Hindu-Muslim issue and please do
 not make it one. I just found the remark very intriguing, coming from
 a man whose political views and opinions have given me a lot of food
 for thought about the meaning of religion and identity!]

It is a well established fact that Modi is a decisive leader with
strong emphasis on good governance and strong development yielding
strong results. No wonder Gujarath has been given thumbs up in most
growth reports and it is easily the fastest growing state in entire
India and many NDA ruled states like Chattisgarh, Bihar are picking up
clues from this development plank oriented politics.

Advani has got bit old, and was seen tottering on some issues like the
black money, which though are important, are something that the rural
population of India cannot relate to and identify themselves with.
Modi instead would talk about development and measures to raise the
welfare of rural segments as well as urban segments, and raises the
Hindutva card only if Sonia Gandhi bites like the Maut ka Saudagar
comment. Advani also didn't lead from front despite the passion he
holds for building a strong, stable and prosperous India. One cannot
help but feel sorry for the immense efforts he put to become a PM, the
travel he did all over India like Rahul Gandhi did. Rajnath Singh's
shoddy mouthing and crass indisciplined organisation and planning also
let down Advani and BJP. This is an end to the illustrious career he's
had.

So in a way that should explain your fathers sentiments. I might be
wrong. But you could talk to him as well on this and get more deeper
understanding from him on what he meant when he said Modi would be ok
compared to Advani and why ? What is the difference btw them. But, I'm
pretty sure that it would be on developmental plank.

The most happy thing about this elections for me is a strong stable
government at center without support of impractical left, RJD and
Paswan, SP and BSP. I'm also happy to see national parties gaining
more in UP at expense of casteist BSP and to some extent SP. People
are beginning to realize development counts beyond caste, religion
etc. Most states like Delhi, Bihar, Gujarath have voted strongly on
development plank and this is change that needs to be welcomed in
Indian political arena. In Karnataka, Janardhan Swamy, an IISc alum
and experienced software engineer previously at Sun Microsystems has
won from over 1 lakh votes on a BJP ticket. Swamy is a guy who has
done lot for his constituency of Chitradurga before he entered
politics. Impressive hope therein lies for the youth of India wanting
to enter the politics. I'm also happy to see parties like TRS losing
out along with Vaiko. The only concern will be now to see what roles
TC and DMK grab at the UPA government. The lesser they get more good
for India.

Regards,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

I anyways expected these comments from Srs. when I was trying to reply
to Zainab that Modi did a lots of good things from developmental
perspective. I wasn't talking from Gujarath riots perspective. I
offered a viewpoint why Zainab's father might have found Modi better
than Advani despite some allegations on him regarding the riots. FYI,
I condemn any form of pogrom and organized killing and I hope you do
not brand me as an extreme Hindutva supporter. To set the record
right, I'm not communal as well as Pseudo-Secular even though some of
you might want to portray me as one.

Also, you cannot deny that the Congress has also been a divisive party
more or so from Indira times and they still haven't provided justice
to certain people in Punjab and it is a party that has been known to
do minority, reservations appeasement like the Haj subsidy et al. And
in this elections you very well know that Sajjan Kumar's brother has
won in one of the Delhi seats despite strong reservations against
Sajjan Kumar. So please acknowledge that both parties share
considerable and similar flaws in their history and yet are better
than most regionalistic parties in coming to development oriented
politics.

Bonobashi also forgets considerable number of Hindus were also killed
in those riots when he/she mentions the figures of 2000, and again I'm
not sure if Bonobashi is cracking jokes here or is being serious :P

But if one looks up the developmental indices of Andhra where YSR is
ruling and that of TN in DMK, he/she will find Modi trumping them up
easily along with Nitish of Bihar wrt agricultural growth for Bihar.
Which is what I brought to views of Zainab. I also asked her if she
would be ok in letting us know via questions to his dad, what was the
real reason he finds Modi interesting compared to Advani.

And Zainab herself told that she didn't want to be drawn to the case
of Hindu- Muslim riots. And I don't know why Suresh wants to bring in
the topic of riots and hit out at me for bringing modi's developmental
oriented politics. Suresh might want to read about the exaggerated
death figures regarding the recent case in Orissa riots which was
refuted by the Naveen Patnaik government.

Sadly, this is what democracy is about. One can go upon expressing any
viewpoint. even though it is ill informed, and it still is valid to
express a view point in India and get branded as a supporter of some
genocide.

-- Bharat

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 6:23 AM, Suresh Ramasubramanian
sur...@hserus.net wrote:
 Bharat Shetty [17/05/09 05:07 -0400]:

 It is a well established fact that Modi is a decisive leader with
 strong emphasis on good governance and strong development yielding
 strong results. No wonder Gujarath has been given thumbs up in most

 Are you joking? Or do you actually believe that?

 welfare of rural segments as well as urban segments, and raises the
 Hindutva card only if Sonia Gandhi bites like the Maut ka Saudagar
 comment. Advani also didn't lead from front despite the passion he

 Raising hindutva card - hell, any number of people will do that .. Shiv
 will probably point you to a bunch of harmless people (and I have very dear
 relatives who are card carrying bjp members).  It takes a very special kind
 of person indeed to countenance a pogrom. And that's what the gujarat riots
 were, plain and simple.

        srs

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Brilliant,

We all should stop looking at the past and make sure right lizards get
into the Parliament on the development plank only. I feel caste,
religions and divisive politics should not be taken into count when
voting. Right Lizard should be selected on basis of what it will do
for the constituency more than other competing lizards. The congress
has done well in Punjab owing to sad uninspiring candidate selections
by Akali Dal and the BJP.

Question to Sirtaj Singh is - I wanted to know how well Navjot Singh
Sidhu is doing in his constituency on development plank? I ask this
because he had a case on him, on which I haven't read properly and he
has won again in his constituency.

Also, when I said we should stop looking at past, I don't mean we
should forget the history and the mistakes committed in the past. We
should ensure the victims should get justice also. But when electing,
we should vote on the development plank only and not look into past
and vote against a good person because he belongs to the bad party.

I've been most delighted about Renuka Chowdhary's defeat, Vaiko's loss
and the loss of Ranjeet Ranjan wife of Pappu Yadav, and the defeat of
Sadhu Yadav, the terorrising brother of Laloo Yadav. Slowly, there is
optimistic hope that the criminals will be silently flushed out of the
Indian politics. I also fore-see a bad time for the stupid MNS in
Maharashtra.

As for Modi, one day he will have to explain in the court of justice,
what he was doing at the time of riots. So far, he hasn't been
implicated nor any credible evidence has been presented and proved
against him. He has been doing extremely well in the court of public
opinion as Lok-sabha and the assembly elections in Gujarath have shown
and it is undeniable that he has re-invented him as Mr.Development.
However if he is proved to be guilty anytime in the future in the
courts of India, with credible proof, I will be one of the first to
demand his resignation from active politics.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 11:51 AM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.net wrote:

 On 17-May-09, at 5:11 PM, Bonobashi wrote:
 [snip]

 And his role in the murder of 2000 people of his state of course doesn't
 matter a tinker's f**k.

 I've seldom seen more cynical views of politics than yours.

 Despite still being pretty bitter about 1984, I voted Congress and in the
 past have assisted in the election of a Congress MP in Punjab. I'm fully
 aware that this puts me somewhere in the spectrum between race traitor and
 confused cynic. The way I see it though, the choice was between a party that
 actively voices and acts on anti-minority (therefore, anti-me-and-my-family)
 sentiment and another that will only do so in the most quietly underhanded
 and cynical way for political purposes. I had to keep the wrong lizard from
 getting in.

 -Taj.

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Vinayak Hegde vinay...@gmail.com wrote:
 Other than this supposed king-makers and transferable vote politics
 purveyor Ram Vilas Paswan lost from Hajipur - a contituency he had won
 wit h a world record margin of votes a while before. So did
 celebrities such as Shekhar Suman and Vinod Khanna. Shashi Tharoor won
 from Thiruvanathapuram. In general it seems well performing people who
 support development have won.

Agree. I forgot Paswan from my list. The trend is clear. Develop or
else perish out. Even the home minister Chidambaram who has not helped
develop Shivaganga properly had quite a scare before he won narrowly.

 Mallika Sarabhai lost but came in third which is admirable for an
 independent candidate. The famous Independents Gopinath - 16K, Meera
 Sanyal 10K, Mallikasarabhai 9K. The indian voter is not as dumb as
 made out to be. I think this time the message is clear - Shape up or
 ship out.

I knew these guys will not win, but full credit to these people for
showing the frustration of average Indian middle class and masses. I'm
observing and analyzing on how other independents won, and on what
basis.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com wrote:
 Somehow, every Modi and BJP  / Hindutva plank apologist seems to believe
 that it's okay to order the killing (and subsequent hush-up) of thousands of
 Muslims as long as you're pro-development, especially if that tag comes from
 bribing the Tatas and Ambanis with free land and zero taxes to side-step
 their conscience and set up factories in Gujarat.

 Am waiting for the time when the average Gujarati will realise that they've
 so far been voting the Nazis into power repeatedly. Somebody - maybe us -
 has to keep telling them.

Replace all BJP with Congress and the same comments will apply to them
as well easily keeping in view the Sikh riots. May be somebody - may
be me and others - will need to tell the average Indian that they are
voting for a party that thrives on pesudo-secularism, and statements
like Nitish Kumar is communal when taking support from criminal and
psuedo-secular parties like SP, RJD, JMM, JD(S), repeatedly since
Indira-Rajeev times and is responsible for some mismanagement and
poverty that lingers in our country.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

And, people also forget that it was NDA under Vajpayee which made
India sound like responsible state that will not tinker insanely with
the Nuclear arms. Strobe Talbott mentions that in his book engaging
India that Jaswanth Singh achieved  a lot more than what he wanted to
achieve and he was left with an admiration for Jaswanth Singh.

The NDA also delivered stunning growth despite the economic sanctions
imposed by the Clinton government back then. If the UPA got a nice
nuclear deal done, it is not undeniable that the NDA set some
foundations for the USA to start feeling that India will not misuse
Nuclear armaments and will want to use it responsibly too and is a
safe state in nuclear deal.

Also the Congress never gives respect to PVN Rao, who was one of the
best PMs for Congress in their campaigns. This smacks of extreme
dynastic sycophancy for the Gandhis in Congress.

As I said earlier the role of TC which opposed SEZs, economic packages
becomes critical now in the new UPA government along with the shrewd
DMK which uses politics for it's self interests using manipulative
tactics with help of some teachers and works less on development.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:38 PM, Vinayak Hegde vinay...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 10:38 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
 Somehow, every Modi and BJP  / Hindutva plank apologist seems to believe
 that it's okay to order the killing (and subsequent hush-up) of thousands of
 Muslims as long as you're pro-development, especially if that tag comes from
 bribing the Tatas and Ambanis with free land and zero taxes to side-step
 their conscience and set up factories in Gujarat.

 Well, playing the Devil's Advocate, if Manmohan singh does the same
 thing, it will be called a stimulus package. Think about it. Giving
 incentives to businesses (within limits) is a positive way of
 promoting growth. All those people who praise Manmohan Singh and
 Narsimha Rao forget the fact the India was forced into the corner when
 reforms were pushed in 1991.

 Bribing for one could be similar to promoting development for another.
 Extending your theory, making it easy for FIIs to invest in India (and
 inviting FDI) is also bribery and kowtowing to the US and EU. (Yeah I
 sound like the left parties now :)

 -- Vinayak

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Before someone bashes me up, I wish to correct a small typo here:


 Replace all BJP with Congress and the same comments will apply to them
 as well easily keeping in view the Sikh riots.

Replace all BJP with Congress, Hindutva with pesudo-secularism and the
same comments will apply to them as well easily keeping in view the
*anti-Sikh* riots.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb



On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:05 PM, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 1:08 PM, Mahesh Murthy mahesh.mur...@gmail.com 
 wrote:
 Somehow, every Modi and BJP  / Hindutva plank apologist seems to believe
 that it's okay to order the killing (and subsequent hush-up) of thousands of
 Muslims as long as you're pro-development, especially if that tag comes from
 bribing the Tatas and Ambanis with free land and zero taxes to side-step
 their conscience and set up factories in Gujarat.

 Am waiting for the time when the average Gujarati will realise that they've
 so far been voting the Nazis into power repeatedly. Somebody - maybe us -
 has to keep telling them.

 Replace all BJP with Congress and the same comments will apply to them
 as well easily keeping in view the Sikh riots. May be somebody - may
 be me and others - will need to tell the average Indian that they are
 voting for a party that thrives on pesudo-secularism, and statements
 like Nitish Kumar is communal when taking support from criminal and
 psuedo-secular parties like SP, RJD, JMM, JD(S), repeatedly since
 Indira-Rajeev times and is responsible for some mismanagement and
 poverty that lingers in our country.

 -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Taj,

Thanks for your inputs on the Punjab scenario. You are bang on target
right about Akali Dal being not strong development oriented in Punjab
and which helped Congress in elections. Akali Dal is a SAD party in
punjab and has lots of introspection to do.

However, you still didn't answer my curious question about how Sidhu
managed to win again. I think you know Punjab better than I do. Which
is why I'm asking you.

And the NDA also lost in 2004 because they didn't do much for rural
development and went with India is shining tag which only urban people
could relate to and backfired badly on them.

Regards,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb



On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 2:32 PM, Sirtaj Singh Kang sir...@sirtaj.net wrote:

 On 17-May-09, at 11:39 PM, Bharat Shetty wrote:
 [snip]

 The NDA also delivered stunning growth despite the economic sanctions
 imposed by the Clinton government back then.

 I'd like nothing more to see some evidence that the vast majority of the 50%
 of the country that bothers to vote gives a flighted turd about that. So
 far, most of the country votes on what can only be described as a very
 narrow form of (enlightened?) self-interest with little thought given to the
 larger picture (a luxury allowed only to those who are fed, educated, secure
 and relatively comfortable).

 Witness -

 - Justice for 2000 dead matters less than jobs

 - Any state government that tries to roll back the free electricity and
 water given to farmers in Punjab WILL lose the election, no matter that it
 has bankrupted the wealthiest state in the country.

 - My entirely unscientific man-on-the-street discussions in Chandigarh
 across various socio-economic levels suggest that the main difference
 between the SAD and INC in Punjab is that the Congressiyas will take their
 bribe and get the job done, while the Akalis will keep you moving up a
 pyramid of bribes where each level has longer arms to reach deeper into your
 pockets, with unclear likelihood of getting what you paid for.


 -Taj.

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi Badri ,

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 6:00 PM, Badri Natarajan asi...@vsnl.com wrote:

I too agree with what Shiv says. And please don't take me as a
supporter of Modi at all. But I offered a viewpoint that Zainab's
father might have thought on developmental planks. And I asked her to
confirm if she wishes to divulge on the list, if what I think might be
the reason is same as her fathers thoughts.

 I have a question about this pseudo-secularism that you have posted about.

 You seem to believe (correct me if I am wrong) that most of the parties
 that I would call secular are in fact pseudo-secular. What do you mean
 by that?

I would like to know which are those parties you call Secular. You
seem to agree with the fact that BJP is communal (which it is in some
cases) but not the fact that other parties are share similar guilt ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudo-secularism

This wiki article should tell you what is secularism really means in
India taking the current trend. Parties are increasingly using this
term to oppose BJP's ideology which they term as Communalism and Hindu
nationalism. Shiv has repeatedly explained what pseudo secularism
means in earlier threads.

 My understanding is that the BJP and related parties espouse the
 philosophy of Hindutva, and that Hindutva (depending on where exactly you
 stand on the political spectrum) means roughly that India is/should be a
 Hindu country with a Hindu identity and that Hindus should be given
 primacy (in whatever form).

I agree that BJP needs to get rid of this and they might tone down
this agenda of their's after the elections debacle. You are very right
in this. But what do you think about the Shah Bhano case and the
Uniform civil code actually, please let me know ?

 Similarly, my understanding of secular parties is that they espouse a
 view which states that India is a country of many religions and faiths and
 no faith should be given primacy over others, and India's identity is as a
 multi-faith country (even if 80% of the population is Hindu).

I view real meaning of secularism exactly the same way you have
defined. However, please be wary that some BJP candidates do not even
talk about Hindutva in their constituencies and join the party just
because they get tickets and are even branded as communal because they
are contesting on BJP ticket even though they are secular in their
personal beliefs. Is that fair for most people to call them bad
because they join BJP ? I'm pretty sure after reading most comments
they are most likely to be called as supporters of this extreme Hindu
nationalism anyways, though their only intention is to get to
parliament and work for the local issues.

 Presumably, when you say pseudo-secular, you mean that the secular
 parties do not live up to the ideal? Are there any truly secular parties
 in your view? Would you vote for one if it existed?

Most of parties are as guilty themselves when they say BJP is communal
and have their fair share of flaws in history, and use that word to
appease minority vote-banks majorly. There is one truly secular party
in AP, called the Lokasatta. You might want to read about it. It's
founder JP recently won an assembly elections in AP. And I hope such
parties come into national prominence asap.

Regards
-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Thaths,

 Bharat,

 You ask us to believe your open mindedness and non-partisanship in the
 issue of Indian elections and politics. And yet you use the pejorative
 epithet 'Pseudo-secular' to characterize the Congress. It is a little
 hard to take your non-partisanship seriously when you are using
 terminology that I have only heard from the Hindu nationalists. Terms
 like Pseudo-secular, Godless communism, Big government Socialism
 and Comprador Capitalist are short hand that tell us a lot about the
 tint of the glasses that the person using these terms sees the world
 through.

Please understand that I said these because supporters of both sides
use these terms commonly in today's context and I refuse to be branded
as supporter of a side you people might want to associate with me.

If you really think Congress is not pseudo secular, what is the right
word you will use for Manmohan's comments that Nitish is not secular
and is communal ? Should I ask not these questions if SRS and others
can question BJP ? Did I ever tell I know what leanings SRS has from
his comments ? Please think about that.

What is Manmohan doing when people like Sajjan Kumar's brother gets
ticket and he wins ? Has he ensured justice for the people of Punjab
who has suffered and he bashes Modi for riots of Gujarath ?

Regards,
-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 6:05 PM, Badri Natarajan asi...@vsnl.com wrote:
 In other words, I think the NDA lost (or rather, the UPA won), because
 they did extremely well in TN and AP, and the Communists also did rather
 well and they managed to pull together a majority in Parliament.
Yes this is right. I didn't frame that sentence properly. The
communists used the bad rural development of NDA to win over 100 seats
from what I've read. Please correct me if this is wrong.

 That's it. I don't think the Indian voter really votes much on national
 issues.
Yes. You are right, they voted for issues they were concerned locally.
Which is another reason they didn't relate to BJP's India Shining tag
cohesively. BJP seems to have committed the same mistakes again this
time on issues like Black money and didn't have a strong developmental
cause like farm loan waivers, NREGA that most rural people were able
to relate with.

Regards,
-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Divya Manian divya.man...@gmail.com wrote:
 I think it is ridiculous to censor words just because it is a jargon
 employed by some hardliners. Bharat is trying to present a view point that
 is most common among middle class Hindus. The least we can do is to listen
 to what he has to say.

 Anyhow, my opinion is India is not secular by virtue of action but only
 because of in-action. Congress is really just the lesser evil right now and
 not really a party committed to secularism (I don't think any party in India
 is).

Atlast someone agrees with that I also feel and has framed what I had
to say in right words. Thanks.

Regards,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

Typo:

that - what.

 -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb


On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:58 PM, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 8:20 PM, Divya Manian divya.man...@gmail.com wrote:
 I think it is ridiculous to censor words just because it is a jargon
 employed by some hardliners. Bharat is trying to present a view point that
 is most common among middle class Hindus. The least we can do is to listen
 to what he has to say.

 Anyhow, my opinion is India is not secular by virtue of action but only
 because of in-action. Congress is really just the lesser evil right now and
 not really a party committed to secularism (I don't think any party in India
 is).

 Atlast someone agrees with that I also feel and has framed what I had
 to say in right words. Thanks.

 Regards,

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Sun, May 17, 2009 at 11:10 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:

 Are you saying the exact term 'Pseudo-secular' is common usage among
 both sides of the debate? Or are you saying that the terms 'communal'
 and 'pseudo-secular' are used by both sides to sling as accusations
 against at each other?

Yes. I meant the latter. Congress and other parties will use the word
Secular to mean that they will not do what they claim BJP will
indulge in. They brand BJP as a communal outfit and then the BJP side
will argue that Congress is pseudo-secular which is as much as valid
as Congress's accusations of BJP being communal and Hindu
nationalistic party.

I didn't use the word Secular instead of Psuedo-Secularism because
though the meaning of Secular in india is directly opposite of
Communalism and Hindu nationalism ( for some) based on current trends.
The real meaning of Secularism doesn't mean that. Hence the word
pseudo secularism.

I don't know if there are any other terminologies and variations of
these various terms used by these two sides. But these are the most
common I've seen in debates between two sides, and I merely told I
will not want to be branded into both sides. If some people have
already associated me with some side, I will not give any damn to that
because I know what are my principles and I leave it to people to feel
free to assume my leanings, tint of the glasses I watch the whole
world through and all.

 Please excuse me for not debating with you on this point. As I pointed
 out above, I am not interested in whether Modi is a butcher or
 Manmohan hides behind Sonia's italian scarf or Jayalalithaa has a
 predilection for, umm, Sasikala.

I used Manmohan's recent example which every national paper covered,
to show what would be viewed exactly pseudo secularism of the Congress
by the some parties. I will not also want to indulge in any debate
further with you on this. I rest my case.

Regards,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

And extending Mahesh's logic, may be it is a sign that Renuka
Chowdhary lost because she over hyped the Ram sena issue and went far
ahead to call Mangalore Talibanised part of India ignoring the
developmental plank at her constituency, Khammam ?

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 1:19 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Monday 18 May 2009 10:36:49 am Mahesh Murthy wrote:
 Maybe it is a sign that the Gujarat voter is coming in line with the rest
 of the country and the is beginning to reject the BJP supporters'
 genocide-is-ok-as-long-as-they're-development-friendly plank.

 Yes. 1+1=42

 By the same standards,  In Karnataka we have endorsed the idea of attacking
 nuns and women in pubs.


 shiv

Re: [silk] Why have Indian exit polls been so off lately?

[Bharat Shetty]

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 1:37 AM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Monday 18 May 2009 10:27:51 am Chetan Nagendra wrote:
 Now can please somebody explain why there is so much resentment
 against Modi and the BJP?


 1) Because they are murderers
 2) Because the resentful people are pseudo-secularists
 3) Both of the above


Shiv,

Heh, if you had included one more option, you would have almost
matched Slum Dog millionaire's trailer stuffs which ends with one last
option d) because it was his destiny along with options a, b, c which
I don't quite remember :D

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Ted Translations project

[Bharat Shetty]

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 2:28 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan
kiran.karthike...@gmail.com wrote:

 I completely agree with you, Bharat. How often I have wished that so
 many programs (even on Discovery or NatGeo) were sub-titled!


 Don't the DTH networks like Tata Sky, Dish etc. offer sub-titles? Or is this
 only for the English movie channels?

From my experiences, American TVs allow captioning of all programs.
I'm not sure if National Geographic and Discovery are aired here at
America.

I think when you said Tata Sky, Dish, you are referring to Indian
cable channel providers ? Mostly they will not have captioning. Often
some movies, usually the foreign movies will have subtitles. But other
than that at India, you'd never have captioning for most of the
channels on TV :(

I watch some comedy shows like The Office, The Simpsons, Family guy on
Hulu which has subtitles for some episodes. Some movies on Youtube and
Hulu have subtitles. However, they aren't that popular and awesome
movies.

Also there are various plethora of documentaries on net, which do not
have subtitles as well. Google has been captioning selected videos
mostly in the Google developers category and couple of few tech talks.

Regards,
-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

[silk] Ted Translations project

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi *,

http://www.ted.com/index.php/OpenTranslationProject

Very Impressive. This is heartening for hearing impaired people like
me who wish all pod-casts, videos, music etc on internet was captioned
with subtitles. What adds to the sheer brilliance and usefulness of
this project is they are doing it in multiple languages too. More
power to Captioning, exploitation of technologies to help society and
to a world which slowly becomes accessible despite various languages,
disabilities etc.

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

[silk] Imperialistic countries

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello all,

I've not read History regarding the transformations of countries very
much. But there is doubt that lingers in my head during recent
discussions I've had. Is it true that the internal conflicts
transcending over various factors like religions, caste coupled with
bad governance, mismanagement didn't help India to develop after
Independence ?

Why are European countries like Germany, France, UK are developed well
? Because they were imperialistic or because of good governance after
hitler rule in Germany and imperalistic rules in other places ? What
is causing Bulgaria to develop well ? Poland which was under communist
rule is developed country ? If these are developing rapidly why is it
so ? Because of lesser conflicts compared to India ?

Best,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

[silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi *,

A friend asked me minutes ago - suggest to me, a nice and interesting
science book to read, and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
some science fiction.

So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb

Re: [silk] Best Science book you would recommend to a friend ?

[Bharat Shetty]

Thanks for pointers so far.

Ok, from what I've discussed with him, he has done the Bryson thing
and Carl Sagan's Cosmos as well. I remember him telling that he wanted
something similar to them.

Best,

-- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb


On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 11:25 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:
 On Tue, May 5, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Venkat Mangudi's Silk Account
 s...@venkatmangudi.com wrote:
 A short history of nearly everything by Bill Bryson is an interesting read.

 http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything/dp/0767908171

 *cough* top-post *cough*

 Speaking of that book there was a good AskMefi thread about similar
 books about History:

 http://ask.metafilter.com/120433/Is-there-a-book-in-the-same-vein-as-Brysons-A-Short-History-of-Nearly-Everything-only-covering-history-instead-of-science

 And AskMefi seems to have some good threads on book recommendations:

 http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/search.mefi?site=askq=science+book

 What is your friend's level of education wrt to Science? And exactly
 what sort of book is she looking for? Nice and interesting are
 pretty vague filters to apply on the thousands of science books out
 there.

 S.


 On 5/6/09, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote:
 Hi *,

 A friend asked me minutes ago - suggest to me, a nice and interesting
 science book to read, and I was clueless on what to suggest, except
 some science fiction.

 So venerable silk-listers, I would like to know what would have been
 your answer, if you were asked the same question ?

 -- Bharat | http://twitter.com/shettyb



 --
 Sent from my mobile device





 --
   You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel. -- Homer J. Simpson

Re: [silk] In UP, Brahmins do tactical voting, not Muslims

[Bharat Shetty]

Shiv,

 At independence Hindus decided OK - so you
 folks have no caste - your religion unites you right? So we Hindus will
 handle caste matters and you look after your affairs (This has a bearing on
 the rise of Hindutva - which I will post in a separate message if anyone is
 interested)

I'm interested. Please do post more on this.

Regards,

-- Bharat

[silk] Deletion of names from Electoral rolls in Mysore

[Bharat Shetty]

From a friend at Mysore.

http://mysore.praja.in/discuss/forums/2009/04/fight-vote

-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Another Incarnation (Book Review of 'The Hindus, An Alternate History')

[Bharat Shetty]

Ah Kiran,

I knew before that Doniger and Pankaj Mishra are both generally well
criticized writers. Mishra's posts have been criticized and proved to
be hollow before and these are the types of writers who along with
Martha Nausbaum try to write carefully as to make their side of
argument stand out.

Ramachandra guha is another example. He would cleverly filter out
non-Nehru and non-congress stuffs from his books.

So I would pick a low priced copy of this book just for the reading fun :-)

-- Bharat

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan
kiran.karthike...@gmail.com wrote:
 2009/4/29 Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com

 Ok, fairly interesting book.


 Looks like Doniger is somebody whose scholarship disputed and has a fairly
 strong inclination to favor a sexual interpretation of Hindu texts. But as
 the article below points out, this malaise has spread throughout US Hinduism
 studies.

 http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Hinduism/2004/06/U-S-Hinduism-Studies-A-Question-Of-Shoddy-Scholarship.aspx?p=1

 This particular excerpt from the article was enough to convince me that she
 should be read with a pinch of salt -

 [University of Chicago professor Wendy Doniger has been quoted in the
 Philadelphia Inquirer calling the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Hindu text, a
 dishonest book that justifies war.]

 I'm no scholar of the Gita, but I have read 4
 versions/translations/interpretations, and I'm confused on how she arrived
 at this conclusion. The wikipedia article doesn't speak too highly of her
 either (though it is disputed), so you if you are reading it, you might want
 to check out the talk section for it too.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Doniger

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wendy_Doniger

 But if you do manage to find a lower priced India copy, do let me know. I'm
 poor too :)

 Kiran

Re: [silk] Another Incarnation (Book Review of 'The Hindus, An Alternate History')

[Bharat Shetty]

Ok,

You make me sound like I'm actually on a side. I will rephrase my
sentence, if that makes you happy.

I will take back that I'm going to read that book for fun statement.
Instead, honestly I want to know the other alternative view point and
I'm a person who reads and want to know all view points.

Guha's books are more of selected facts based on selected research and
most of them are accurate and valid. But still I still stand to my
view that he carefully writes the way he wants. Anyone who reads his
book can make that out. Did I say there was no Hindu Mahasabha and
they were an organization without flaws ?

You are only bringing that here. And as for your points on why they
wont burn his books, Guha hardly writes any stuffs that are viewed
sensitively like Arun Shourie who wrote a book on Ambedkar and was
dragged into streets and abused physically and that book was
subsequently banned.

You seem to forget that Hindu Mahasabha got chided out for protesting
against partition, which itself is root of many communal problems
plaguing out country these days.

-- Bharat

On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 9:56 AM, Bonobashi bonoba...@yahoo.co.in wrote:



 --- On Wed, 29/4/09, Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com
 Subject: Re: [silk] Another Incarnation (Book Review of 'The Hindus, An  
 Alternate History')
 To: silklist@lists.hserus.net
 Date: Wednesday, 29 April, 2009, 6:35 PM
 Ah Kiran,

 I knew before that Doniger and Pankaj Mishra are both
 generally well
 criticized writers. Mishra's posts have been criticized and
 proved to
 be hollow before and these are the types of writers who
 along with
 Martha Nausbaum try to write carefully as to make their
 side of
 argument stand out.


 As opposed to the other type of writer who try to write carelessly 'as to 
 make their side of argument' stand in?




 Ramachandra guha is another example. He would cleverly
 filter out
 non-Nehru and non-congress stuffs from his books.



 What an abomination! You mean there's nothing at all on the Hindu Mahasabha 
 in this base, rotten scoundrel's books? Why don't they ban him, and then burn 
 his book? Preferably while he's holding its only printed copy?



 So I would pick a low priced copy of this book just for the
 reading fun :-)


 Reading fun? Reading is serious stuff, to be attended to in suitably earnest 
 mood, with some tissues at one's side. What fun?


 -- Bharat

 On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 7:57 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan
 kiran.karthike...@gmail.com
 wrote:
  2009/4/29 Bharat Shetty bharat.she...@gmail.com
 
  Ok, fairly interesting book.
 
 
  Looks like Doniger is somebody whose scholarship
 disputed and has a fairly
  strong inclination to favor a sexual interpretation of
 Hindu texts. But as
  the article below points out, this malaise has spread
 throughout US Hinduism
  studies.
 
  http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Hinduism/2004/06/U-S-Hinduism-Studies-A-Question-Of-Shoddy-Scholarship.aspx?p=1
 
  This particular excerpt from the article was enough to
 convince me that she
  should be read with a pinch of salt -
 
  [University of Chicago professor Wendy Doniger has
 been quoted in the
  Philadelphia Inquirer calling the Bhagavad Gita, a
 sacred Hindu text, a
  dishonest book that justifies war.]
 
  I'm no scholar of the Gita, but I have read 4
  versions/translations/interpretations, and I'm
 confused on how she arrived
  at this conclusion. The wikipedia article doesn't
 speak too highly of her
  either (though it is disputed), so you if you are
 reading it, you might want
  to check out the talk section for it too.
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Doniger
 
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wendy_Doniger
 
  But if you do manage to find a lower priced India
 copy, do let me know. I'm
  poor too :)
 
  Kiran
 




      Bollywood news, movie reviews, film trailers and more! Go to 
 http://in.movies.yahoo.com/

Re: [silk] Another Incarnation (Book Review of 'The Hindus, An Alternate History')

[Bharat Shetty]

Ok, fairly interesting book. But the price tag is too high for a poor
guy like me :-(.

I'd hope it becomes available in the public libraries at the place I
stay now at, or I'd have to outsource it from India to here.

Having said that, I wonder if there is any service that allows people
at USA order books from Indian stores with delivery to the US listed
addresses ?

-- Bharat

On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:41 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:
 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/books/review/Mishra-t.html?pagewanted=print

 Another Incarnation
 By PANKAJ MISHRA

 THE HINDUS

 An Alternative History

 By Wendy Doniger

 779 pp. The Penguin Press. $35

 Visiting India in 1921, E. M. Forster witnessed the eight-day
 celebration of Lord Krishna’s birthday. This first encounter with
 devotional ecstasy left the Bloomsbury aesthete baffled. “There is no
 dignity, no taste, no form,” he complained in a letter home. Recoiling
 from Hindu India, Forster was relieved to enter the relatively
 rational world of Islam. Describing the muezzin’s call at the Taj
 Mahal, he wrote, “I knew at all events where I stood and what I heard;
 it was a land that was not merely atmosphere but had definite outlines
 and horizons.”

 Forster, who later used his appalled fascination with India’s
 polytheistic muddle to superb effect in his novel “A Passage to
 India,” was only one in a long line of Britons who felt their notions
 of order and morality challenged by Indian religious and cultural
 practices. The British Army captain who discovered the erotic temples
 of Khajuraho in the early 19th century was outraged by how “extremely
 indecent and offensive” depictions of fornicating couples profaned a
 “place of worship.” Lord Macaulay thundered against the worship, still
 widespread in India today, of the Shiva lingam. Even Karl Marx
 inveighed against how man, “the sovereign of nature,” had degraded
 himself in India by worshipping Hanuman, the monkey god.

 Repelled by such pagan blasphemies, the first British scholars of
 India went so far as to invent what we now call “Hinduism,” complete
 with a mainstream classical tradition consisting entirely of Sanskrit
 philosophical texts like the Bhagavad-Gita and the Upanishads. In
 fact, most Indians in the 18th century knew no Sanskrit, the language
 exclusive to Brahmins. For centuries, they remained unaware of the
 hymns of the four Vedas or the idealist monism of the Upanishads that
 the German Romantics, American Transcendentalists and other early
 Indophiles solemnly supposed to be the very essence of Indian
 civilization. (Smoking chillums and chanting “Om,” the Beats were
 closer to the mark.)

 As Wendy Doniger, a scholar of Indian religions at the University of
 Chicago, explains in her staggeringly comprehensive book, the British
 Indologists who sought to tame India’s chaotic polytheisms had a
 “Protestant bias in favor of scripture.” In “privileging” Sanskrit
 over local languages, she writes, they created what has proved to be
 an enduring impression of a “unified Hinduism.” And they found keen
 collaborators among upper-caste Indian scholars and translators. This
 British-Brahmin version of Hinduism — one of the many invented
 traditions born around the world in the 18th and 19th centuries — has
 continued to find many takers among semi-Westernized Hindus suffering
 from an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the apparently more successful
 and organized religions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

 The Hindu nationalists of today, who long for India to become a
 muscular international power, stand in a direct line of 19th-century
 Indian reform movements devoted to purifying and reviving a Hinduism
 perceived as having grown too fragmented and weak. These mostly
 upper-caste and middle-class nationalists have accelerated the
 modernization and homogenization of “Hinduism.”

 Still, the nontextual, syncretic religious and philosophical
 traditions of India that escaped the attention of British scholars
 flourish even today. Popular devotional cults, shrines, festivals,
 rites and legends that vary across India still form the worldview of a
 majority of Indians. Goddesses, as Doniger writes, “continue to
 evolve.” Bollywood produced the most popular one of my North Indian
 childhood: Santoshi Mata, who seemed to fulfill the materialistic
 wishes of newly urbanized Hindus. Far from being a slave to mindless
 superstition, popular religious legend conveys a darkly ambiguous view
 of human action. Revered as heroes in one region, the characters of
 the great epics “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata” can be regarded as
 villains in another. Demons and gods are dialectically interrelated in
 a complex cosmic order that would make little sense to the theologians
 of the so-called war on terror.

 Doniger sets herself the ambitious task of writing “a narrative
 alternative to the one constituted by the most famous texts in
 Sanskrit.” As she puts it, “It’s not all about Brahmins, Sanskrit, 

[silk] Statistics on development taken by politicos

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello,

Does anybody know where I can find more resources that give copious,
reliable and accurate information about the development being taken in
all states. Something like the Outlook magazine's reports recently on
the development taken by each politician in their own constituency ?

http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20090504fname=Report+cardsid=1

Thanks and regards,

-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Statistics on development taken by politicos

[Bharat Shetty]

Zainab,

Thanks for the quick information :-)

-- Bharat


On Mon, Apr 27, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Zainab Bawa bawazaina...@gmail.com wrote:
 Does anybody know where I can find more resources that give copious,
 reliable and accurate information about the development being taken in
 all states.


 Outlook, or rather the Satark Nagarik Sanghatana (SNS), has provided
 information about way in which each MP has spent the discretionary funds
 from what is known as the MPLAD fund. SNS got this information by filing
 right to information (RTI) applications.

 You can similarly find information about how municipal councilors in Mumbai
 have spent money from their discretionary funds on www.praja.org

 For similar information on MLAs, you have to file RTI applications with
 respective state government departments asking for they have spent money
 from their discretionary MLA-LAD funds.



 --
 Zainab Bawa
 Ph.D. Student and Independent Researcher

 Between Places ...
 http://zainab.freecrow.org

Re: [silk] Disenfranchised Minorities?

[Bharat Shetty]

Shiv +1

Even my dad who is a Hindu, could not vote in Bangalore Central, with
is a new constituency after the recent delimitation process and where
Sangliana, a Christian has won last Loksabha seat on a BJP ticket and
is now on a Congress ticket. My dad's name was not in the lists even
though my mother's and my name were included in the list. We are
assuming that since we changed address from Mysore to Bangalore, the
officials might have erred in including Dad's name in the lists. But,
I'd like to find out the real reason somehow.

In nutshell, I strongly detest this victimhood and speaking from
religious view points from anyone be it - Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
It is fairly understandable to see this emanating from poor sections
of society. But I find it loathable if it is from highly educated
sections of the society.

It is quite sad that the Election Commission, which needs to be
praised for working hard to ensure elections go off smoothly in a
great democratic country like India, still has lots of questions to be
answered on it's plate.

-- Bharat



On Sat, Apr 25, 2009 at 8:05 PM, ss cybers...@gmail.com wrote:

 Biju have you checked how many Hindus had their names deleted?

 May I put it to you that when a Christian or Muslim finds his name absent it
 is minority discrimination. When a Hindu finds his name absent - it is
 Indian inefficiency and corruption.

 Without saying that there is no discrimination, I must point out that the
 tactic used by Christianity and Islam, throughout history is to continuouly
 allege discrimination and play victim. By design Chriatianity and Islam are
 always under attack as evidenced by the ever present stories of
 discsimination.

 To me this might be another case of crying wolf as usual.

 shiv

Re: [silk] Disenfranchised Minorities?

[Bharat Shetty]

Btw,

Just few small corrections on typos:

 Even my dad who is a Hindu, could not vote in Bangalore Central, with
with - which

 answered on it's plate.
it's - its

Moreover, a friend informs me that the Election Commission usually
does a survey of the persons who have not voted and if they find that
particular person has not voted and hasn't been found around at the
address they have given earlier, such names are marked as deleted on
the rolls. There could be other plausible reasons as well.

Thanks,

-- Bharat

Re: [silk] Need some help

[Bharat Shetty]

Sumant,

+1

Obtaining a house for rent in places where you do not own houses is
always a major PITA. The owner of the house we eventually zeroed upon
in Bangalore will not let us use a bigger door to enter our house
because she thinks it will bring bad luck to their family. We use a
smaller door to enter the house and through which one has to squeeze
in carefully - so as to avoid brushing himself/herself against the
frames of the door. Also the house's floor has a very rough and
unpleasant mosaic. But we had to compromise for it was located in an
excellent locality and road (80 Feet Road, Indiranagar) nearby to all
basic amenities needed in life.

When we'd rented out our house in Mysore to tenants, we absolutely
made no restrictions on our tenants. When we'd returned back just a
year later, what we found was horribly blackened roof in the  kitchen.
It seemed as they never opened the windows of our decent and easily
ventilated kitchen or never bothered to use the exhaust fan. We'd got
it painted by our own money and made a small restriction on next new
tenants that they should keep the Kitchen fan turned on when they cook
along with slight opening of the windows.

Like wise, in Coimbatore, we faced this no non-veg rule in strictly
orthodox Brahmin localities and as Sumanth said we need to give
respect to their distaste for foul smell emanating when cooking meat
especially fish fry.

-- B

On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 3:02 AM, Sumant Srivathsan suma...@gmail.com wrote:
 But I don't think people can directly question you on those two for
 renting out houses. It's not like they  are giving stuff for free.

 If I own a house, I can set my own criteria for choosing a tenant. For
 better or for worse, these criteria are always discriminatory on some count
 or the other. But when it comes to picking someone over an equally
 appropriate alternate, the choice comes down to the intangibles of how one
 feels/relates to the potential tenants. If religion, eating habits, marital
 status or length of hair is the consideration, so be it. A marketplace with
 alternatives should sort it out easily enough.

 On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 12:15 PM, Zainab Bawa bawazaina...@gmail.comwrote:

 Property owners have every right to ask such questions. But then, are
 these  questions being asked from a very purist perspective of disrupting
 the sanctity of property by cooking 'non-veg'? Does property ownership make
 us conservative or is it the trends in society that add to the
 conservativeness? I am asking myself all these questions. There are also
 fundamental issues of freedom of choice that I feel are involved here. In
 some cases, I feel scared to even say my name because the moment people hear
 my name, they say no non-veg when in reality I am vegetarian for health
 purposes and because of my political problem with the poultry industry which
 is very unhealthy. Processed/factory meat is as terrible as pesticide laden
 vegetables!


 My experience is that the social aspects of apartment living contribute
 significantly to the no non-veg, no Muslims, no bachelors rules. The first
 is simply because vegetarians are far more intolerant of the smells
 associated with cooking meat, and homeowners are loath to deal with the
 complaints that come from it, and the complaints are many. My mother's
 tenant is non-vegetarian, and the people who live upstairs call her twice a
 week to whine about the smell of fish. My mother is hardcore veggie, but
 it's a credit to her fortitude that she ignores them and doesn't bother our
 very nice tenants (who make a most excellent Chettinad meen curry).

 I find the no Muslims rule disgusting, and as you say, it's a result of
 preconceived notions about what Muslims do at home, many of which are absurd
 and ignorant. In some parts of Bombay, they won't let the Muslims in simply
 because of communal sensitivities. Some apartment complexes in Mahim are
 quite aggressive about this, and are supported by the Shiv Sena and their
 associate hoodlums. OTOH, many societies will actively prefer Catholic (or
 the more secular ones, just Christian) tenants. We're an equal-opportunity
 discriminatory society.

 --
 Sumant Srivathsan
 http://sumants.blogspot.com

Re: [silk] Need some help

[Bharat Shetty]

Clashes between North-Indian and South Indian food in the vast Indian
diaspora in America has become fairly common. You'd see debates on how
the other type of food sucks etc among Indian communities in and
around Universities. Funningily enough for me, I've liked the variety
of food I've tasted here -Tamil types with sour flavour, heavy north
Indian meals, spicy andhra stuffs in addition to Thai, Italian food.

-- B



On Fri, Mar 13, 2009 at 1:04 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
 Venkat Mangudi wrote, [on 3/13/2009 10:21 AM]:

 You'll be surprised that many communities in the US hesitate before
 letting Indians (all of us are the same to them) live there. I have
 heard nasty comments about the smell of curry in the neighbourhood. I
 am not saying that this discrimination is acceptable. But it's present,
 is all I am saying.

 Data point:

 When I closed on an apartment in Campbell, CA in 1999, the super (a
 LARGE black woman) gave me an obviously well-rehearsed spiel on the
 lines of do what you want, cook what you want, but don't make me come
 remind you that you're late with your rent.

 For extra irony points, my then-roomie (also Indian) said to me, I
 don't like South Indian food. To which my response was Great. You cook
 then.

 :)

 Udhay
 --
 ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))

[silk] For the end-user, the interface is the system

[Bharat Shetty]

Congratulations to Vinayak for contributing an article which was
published in the Oreilly book.

More here:  
http://thoughts.vinayakhegde.com/2009/03/09/97-things-every-software-architect-should-know/

Vinayak, keep these stuffs coming!

-- B

Re: [silk] What is Indian culture?

[Bharat Shetty]

Kiran, +1

By the way, has the magnitude of urban protests (articles, voicing of
opinions on blogs or media, pink chaddi sarcasm/creativity whatever it
might be, candle light marches etc) been lesser than protests at rural
areas ?

Suppose, if it is really greater than the magnitude of protests at
rural areas, I wonder why is that ?

Are the people at rural areas bogged down by problems, which they
perceive as greater and more pertinent to them than the pub attacks,
attacks on women at urban centres ? OR

Are they not given due attention by the media which delightfully is
pleased to fill in the stories of urban protests into their columns
and articles for they could not get something else useful to fill in
their news sections ? OR

Are they envious of the comfortable life led by these middle class
families and youth in urban areas ? OR

Are they made not to reveal too much by the local political mafias or
landlords ? OR

Are they missing some platform where they can come out openly like
middle class urban youth and people ?

The list can go on ..

A pluralistic country like India throws up too many questions - some
of them disturbing, and need to be analysed by getting down into the
roots, if we can do that.

-- Bharat


On Mon, Mar 9, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Kiran K Karthikeyan
kiran.karthike...@gmail.com wrote:
 Udhay,

 Firstly, I was trying to draw a distinction between Indian culture(s)
 and the Indian culture that is oh-so-conveniently trotted out as an
 excuse for the various lumpen elements in the public sphere.

 Secondly, I don;t understand why _seeking to understand_ either Indian
 culture or Indian culture is in itself a capitulation or a victory for
 the Mutaliks.

 What I was trying to say was maybe more in context with the article
 which was asking for a defense to what the Ram Sena sees as the
 degradation of Indian culture. Excerpt below:

What I need is a well-thought-out, clearly articulated dictum of what
 constitutes Indian culture; a list if you will; ammunition. So that when
 orators at a Hindutva meeting talk about Indian culture being screwed
 up, I can tell him that they are wrong. I can tell Selvam, “Indian
 culture is not just about wearing jasmine in the hair. It is X, Y, and Z.”

 I don't think any clearly articulated dictum/ammunition is necessary.
 X, Y, and Z differs for each person. And what Mutalik is doing is
 imposing his X, Y, and Z if you will, on others. If the urbane try to
 define their own X, Y, and Z in what way are we different from
 Mutalik, although we are doing so in defense to Mutalik's offensive?
 If another crackpot starts with how Hindus should live, will we try to
 define what it means for us to be Hindu in defense? Be Bangalorean?
 All I'm trying to say is that while all these identities are
 collective, their essence is in each individual, not the collective.

 So what Mutalik is angry about is that he knows very well that his
 interpretation of Indian culture is dying or dead (if he is honest
 about his purpose which I doubt). American Beauty had this wonderful
 line Never underestimate the power of denial.

 I'm thankful for the fact that the Ministy of Culture didn't have an
 answer to the question of what defines Indian culture. I'd be quite
 worried if they did.

 Kiran

Re: [silk] Olympic Medals

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi Gautham,


 As for the silver, I assume there was an event where two people tied
 for second place.


Yeah, some of such events were Swimming and 100 m womens' running race
dominated by Jamaicans.



 What puzzles me is why there are so many more bronzes. Does a
 particular discipline hand out multiple bronze medals?


Yeah, Boxing does. If one enters semis in Boxing he can win a medal of any
hue depending on his performance in semis. Those losing in semis get bronzes
whereas finals decides the gold and silver. There must be other such
disciplines too.

-- B

http://colono.livejournal.com

Re: [silk] Intro

[Bharat Shetty]

Hi Ashwin,

Welcome to the Silk-list.

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 9:19 AM, Ashwin N [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 Who are the other SGers here? :-)


Divya ( Nimbupani ) is one perhaps.

-- Bharat

[silk] Another plea for help!

[Bharat Shetty]

O' silky intellectuals and gentlemen and women,

To whomsoever it may concern, To whomsoever who can tolerate my requests,

here is the plea.

I have been reading exorbitant amount of blogs succulent with variegated
information, references and tidbits. I rely the most on RSS via this
brilliant software called Google Reader, which most of you might be or might
not be familiar by now. In my quest for the betterment of the flawed
knowledge which I have accumulated over the years due to sheer ignorance or
using wrong, unreliable sources, I have been actively rummaging the web,
books and news feeds.

As such when it comes to web, I have discovered many excellent blogs
particularly few by Amit Varma, Amitava Kumar, Chandrahas Chaudhary,
Gurcharan Das, Scot Aaronson, Marginal Revolution of Tyler Cowen etc. There
are few more stuffs like the revered Paul Graham who write in a journalistic
format and on whose posts the collective name of blog perhaps cannot be
enforced.

Coming to the Papers, I read online op-eds extensively. In the Indian media
I read The Hindu and have found their online stuffs ok for now. However,
when it comes to op-eds I subscribe to Business Standard, The Hindu, Rediff
op-eds, The economist, Ny Times, Gaurdian, IHT ( NY Times International one)
etc. If there any prominent op-ed from papers or any other good sites that
I'm missing here, please let me know.

There are also few more stuffs that I subscribe to. I have striven to tag
and categorise most of these precisely 124 feeds that I have. I'm afraid as
I extend my knowledge base, it might go up extensively.

So, how do you people manage when devouring and dissecting hordes of
information which is up for grabs in today's globalized world ? Am I not
managing Google reader categorizations well ? Am I missing something ? Am I
not systematic in assimilation of the information ? I'd be most interested
to know.

Regards,

- Bharat

http://colono.livejournal.com
http://twitter.com/mysooruhuduga

Re: [silk] Another plea for help!

[Bharat Shetty]

That was fast!

Reddit hmm, but hasn't some amount of junk got into Reddit these days ?

On Mon, Jul 14, 2008 at 12:10 AM, Eugen Leitl [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 On Sun, Jul 13, 2008 at 11:14:01PM +0530, Bharat Shetty wrote:

  There are also few more stuffs that I subscribe to. I have striven to tag
  and categorise most of these precisely 124 feeds that I have. I'm afraid
 as
  I extend my knowledge base, it might go up extensively.

 I can has an URL list of your RSS feeds?

I have mailed to your email id personally. Please let me know the comments
;)


And have duly noted your links, and shall add some of them if interesting
and appealing to me.

-- Bharat

http://colono.livejournal.com
http://twitter.com/mysooruhuduga

[silk] Disturbing

[Bharat Shetty]

Very disturbing:

gist
The Pune police on Saturday arrested one more person for posting derogatory
content about Congress party chief Sonia Gandhi on an orkut community.
Police have identified the accused as Nithin Chkravarthi Suresh Sahha (22),
a resident of Sharan Apartment, Begum Peth in Hyderabad. The Cyber Crime
Cell had contacted the authorities of Google Company seeking details about
the persons who posted offensive message about the Congress chief on an
orkut community named I hate Sonia Gandhi.
/gist

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/One-more-arrested-for-posting-derogatory-content-about-Sonia-on-orkut/325887/

-- B

[silk] Life After the Oil Crash

[Bharat Shetty]

For the perusal of silk-listers,

I don't know if this article has been posted earlier on this lists. But, if
the statistics, references in this article are true and accurate, then this
article makes sense, I think.

http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

-- Bharat

[silk] Rowling at Harvard

[Bharat Shetty]

Via a friend. Strong fundas here and there.

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/06.05/99-rowlingspeech.html

-- Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo

[silk] Is Wikipedia reliable ?

[bharat shetty]

yo,

In a class, my prof said that - it turns out that Wikipedia was 
factually correct on the material he was teaching at that time. However, 
it turns out that Wikipedia has some wrong information at places, he 
also said. That led me to googling and I came upon this 
http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Main_Page - which promises to be a better 
Wikipedia, by offering reliable content that can be trusted upon. Any 
insights, enlightening comments around, o' venerable silk-listers ?


Bharat - http://freeshell.in/~codo

--
You can't say A is made of B
or vice versa.
All mass is interaction.

   * Statement (c. 1950), quoted in Genius : The Life and Science of Richard 
Feynman (1992) by James Gleick

[silk] Indian Economy's list of best Indian books.

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello all,

I came across this post in The Indian Economy Blog.

http://indianeconomy.org/2006/06/18/ten-best-books-on-india/

Being ignorant on these books so far, I intend to actually buy and read over
some of them, thereby improving my knowledge on our fabulous country. Before
I invest my precious Indian rupees over some of the books mentioned, please
do help me with insights, comments and suggestions regarding the books
mentioned in the list. The help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo

[silk] My intro

[Bharat Shetty]

Hello all,

Uday asked me to post an intro, so here I go. I'm fortunate to have a name
similar to our beautiful, diverse country of rich cultures, traditions,
heritage and history. The name is Bharat. Currently I work for IBM,
Bangalore. When free from work, I try to divide time between books,
photography and travel.

I blog here: http://colono.livejournal.com/
My site: http://freeshell.in/~codo/

Danke, Uday!. Looking forward to active participation in this mindboggling
list. Amen.

-- Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo

*The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds. - John
F. Kennedy.*

Re: [silk] My intro

[Bharat Shetty]

On 1/30/07, Deepa Mohan [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


Welcome Bharat, do you pronounce it as Bh-a-rat as in Ram's brother,
or Bh-aa-rat as in the country?



Er, please note that I said, my name was *similar* to our country:P. So as
for pronounciation, the first one is more commonly used, although some more
patriotic fellas use the later one :P.

Silk is more mind...er...boggling than you may realize...


Hmm, nice to know.

How do you know Udhay? I am carefully not asking why you know Udhay


I don't know Udhay personally. I just joined this list and thats when Uday
asked me to post an intro. But aside that, I took a peep at
http://silk.arachnis.com/community.html . I've known these guys personally -
Thaths, Jace, Kalyan and Amoghavarsha. I have also heard a great deal of
details about other prominent members in this list, but haven't met them
personally.

Thats it! :-).

Deepa.


On 1/30/07, Bharat Shetty [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Hello all,

 Uday asked me to post an intro, so here I go. I'm fortunate to have a
name
 similar to our beautiful, diverse country of rich cultures, traditions,
 heritage and history. The name is Bharat. Currently I work for IBM,
 Bangalore. When free from work, I try to divide time between books,
 photography and travel.

 I blog here: http://colono.livejournal.com/
 My site: http://freeshell.in/~codo/

 Danke, Uday!. Looking forward to active participation in this
mindboggling
 list. Amen.

 -- Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo

 *The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds. -
John
 F. Kennedy.*




-- Bharat Shetty | http://freeshell.in/~codo

*The only way to have a friend is to be one. - Ralph Waldo Emerson.*