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TOP 20 IT Mistakes

InfoWorld: The top 20 IT mistakes to avoid

1. Botching your outsourcing strategy
2. Dismissing open source -- or bowing before it
3. Offshoring with blinders on
4. Discounting internal security threats
5. Failing to secure a fluid perimeter
6. Ignoring security for handhelds
7. Promoting the wrong people
8. Mishandling change management
9. Mismanaging software development
10. Letting engineers do their own QA
11. Developing Web apps for IE only
12. Relying on a single network performance
13. Throwing bandwidth at a network problem
14. Permitting weak passwords
15. Never sweating the small stuff
16. Clinging to prior solutions
17. Falling behind on emerging technologies
18. Underestimating PHP
19. Violating the KISS principle
20. Being a slave to vendor marketing strategies

Accounting Stuff

Prof. Jhunjhunwala's Ideas/Projects

Presentation Material, IIT Madras, India

Alexander - A Disappointment

Alexander movie is simply a disappointment. The movie is boring and did not accomplish anything, it does not give a good idea about the story of Alexander. I really wished that they had made the movie into two to three sequels instead of cramming everything in to a single movie. The epic of Alexander is legendary and his path of conquerring the known world is really big. And the things he accomplished in those years is beyond just conquerring the kingdoms, he really strived to conquer the minds and hearts of the people. That does not mean all the things that he did were good. The movie, instead of giving an impartial view of Alexander, tries to portray him as a messiah. And also movie fails to tell the real story and a person who does not anything about Alexander never knows whats going on as the movie progresses. You can read other reviews here

A Glance @ Worlds History

I came across this fascinating site which has a collection of articles on the world history. I tried to go through Indian history and found a few discrepencies, but on the a whole a good reference to the worlds history. May be this will be a real good start if you are interested to know about history and really not intetested in reading loads of books for the same and this also help you to tell bed time stories to your kids about the World History

1960's Comic Against Communism

Read 1960's Comic Against Communism Tresure Chest

How to Sell Your Boss

Michael Hyatt explains: Working Smart: How to Sell Your Boss in the following steps:

1. Meet your boss’s needs.
   
2. Pick your battles.
   
3. Do your homework.
   
4. “Bullet proof” your proposal.
   
5. Make the pitch.
   
6. Accept responsibility for the outcome.
   

Politics of Noble Prize

Is the formidable institution of the Nobel, which seems to glory in human endeavour, governed by a Eurocentric vision or by extra-meritorious considerations? Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was never awarded a Nobel, nor did he ever lobby for it. But the omission pales other peacenik laureates into insignificance and puts into question the very authority, worldview and rationale behind these prizes.

The charge of politicking, a flair for political correctness, clings to the Norwegian authority despite its much-touted observance of fair play. Vinay Lal, in an article titled Gandhi & the Nobel Peace Prize, says that had Gandhiji been a Nobel winner, he would have been defiled by a pantheon peopled by the likes of Theodore Roosevelt, a "naked imperialist"; a self-avowed terrorist such as Menachem Begin; and Henry Kissinger, the "architect" of the secret bombing of Cambodia, a warmonger and war criminal "for whose arrest a warrant should be put out if there was any respect for the tens of thousands of the victims of Kissinger's policies in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Chile, and elsewhere".

And so it is that Gandhi was never conferred the Nobel Peace Prize. But why should this be a matter of misgiving and regret, and why should we strive for such accolades? Anyone familiar with Gandhi’s life would at once recognize that Gandhi scarcely cared a jot for such forms of recognition, and it is in the fitness of thinking that Gandhi, who left this world with very little on him, and almost made a virtue of nakedness, should have been unadorned by any titles, awards, formal designations, and the like.

There is a sulphurous debate because the second category includes C V Raman, who in 1930 was the first non-white, Asian and Indian to receive the Nobel Prize in physics for his work on the scattering of light and the "Raman Effect". Several questions have been asked about Raman not sharing the prize with others who worked with on the subject.

Hargittai points out that until 1921, German scientists accounted for almost 50 per cent of the awards. Up to 1945, Swedish science enjoyed stronger ties with German as opposed to American and British science.

Well look like Gandhi nobler without a Nobel

Posted by Ramdhan Yadav at 02:56 PM Perma Link | Write A Comment (0)

A modern day parody

Via: The Smorgasbord: A modern day parody

My friend Anita mailed me this modern day parody about an ant and a grasshopper. Quaint. And in some ways, reminiscent of our times.

The classic version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

The modern-day version

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving.

DD, BBC, CNN, NDTV show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house. Amnesty International and Kofi Annan criticize the Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper. The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper. Opposition MPs stage a walkout in the parliament. Left parties call for "Bharat Bandh" in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry. Achuthanathan asks Antony to resign for failing to look after the interests of the Grasshopper. He demanded that the food stocks with Ant must taken over
by the Civil Supplies and the Ant be arrested and charged for hoarding essential items.

Karunakaran calls Antony a bastard for ignoring the interests of the Grasshopper and yet again threatens the High Command with dire consequences if ‘I’ group’s demands are not met. Only he understands the problems of the Grasshopper and he alone can solve this issue. Since his doctors have indicated that he will live for another 20 years, he must be given Chief Ministership
so that he can look after the welfare of his ‘clan’ for the next 20 years and pray for the welfare of the Grasshopper during his monthly visits to Guruvayur.

DYFI and CITU organise relay fast outside the secretariat to show their solidarity with the Grasshopper - fasting during the day and feasting at night.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism Against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]", with effect from the beginning of winter. The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his food stock is confiscated by the government and stored in the Food Corporation godowns. The Centre introduces a cess to provide food subsidy for the Grasshoppers.

The Kerala government not to be out done, promises to offer free land to Grasshoppers to build houses. Supplyco “promises” a years supply of food to the Grasshopper. For her selfless service to the welfare of the Grasshopper, Arundathi Roy is invited to Delhi to receive the Padmabhushan from the President. DD, BBC, CNN and NDTV cover the ceremony. Arunadathi calls it a
victory for the oppressed. Kofi Annan invites her to address the U.N and suggests her name for the Nobel Prize.

Meanwhile half the food stacked in the godown are consumed by rats and the other rots and becomes unfit even for rats. The cess is used to build a swank building to be occupied by the Grasshopper Welfare Commission. The promised free land and free food never materialises.

Both the Ant and the Grasshopper were last seen scurrying for scraps in the refuse dump outside Palayam market ignored and forgotten by politicians, do gooders like Arundathi and the media.

Best/Worst Cities to Sleep

Shuteye.com: Sleep in the City : How Does Your City Rank?

1. Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN
2. Anaheim, CA
3. San Diego, CA
4. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
5. Washington, DC
6. Northern NJ
7. Chicago, IL
8. Boston, MA
9. Austin-San Marcos, TX
10. Kansas City, MO
11. Oakland, CA
12. Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ
13. Denver, CO
14. Los Angeles-Long Beach, CA
15. Columbus, OH
16. Pittsburgh, PA
17. San Antonio, TX
18. Riverside-San Bernardino, CA
19. Philadelphia, PA
20. Sacramento, CA
21. Newark, NJ
22. Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point, NC
23. Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC
24. Houston, TX
25. Milwaukee-Waukesha, WI
26. Seattle-Bellevue-Everett, WA
27. Salt Lake City-Ogden, UT
28. Dallas, TX
29. Indianapolis, IN
30. Nassau-Suffolk, NY
31. Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
32. Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News, VA
33. Orlando, FL
34. Baltimore, MD
35. Atlanta, GA
36. San Jose, CA
37. Fort Lauderdale, FL
38. Phoenix-Mesa, AZ
39. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL
40. Portland, OR
41. St. Louis, MO
42. San Francisco, CA
43. Miami, FL
44. Las Vegas, NV
45. New York, NY
46. New Orleans, LA
47. Cincinnati, OH
48. Nashville, TN
49. Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria, OH
50. Detroit, MI

Read the article @ BookOfJoe

People/Machines that are made our Civilizations

I came across this site Engines Of Our Ingenuity which has fascinating transcripts about out civilization.

The Engines of Our Ingenuity is a radio program that tells the story of how our culture is formed by human creativity. Written and hosted by John Lienhard, it is heard nationally on Public Radio and produced by KUHF-FM Houston. Among other features, this web site houses the transcripts for every episode heard since the show's inception in 1988. Streaming audio is available on each of the posted episodes.

You can access the text and transcript @ http://www.uh.edu/engines/epiindex.htm

Soneri - 'Wonder Girl' Gets First Place in Jackson Elem (Plano School) Poster Competition

Soneri Wondergirl, daugher of my buddy Prateek, does it again. She always gets first in all the events she participates, she is a true sweet beautiful wonder girl. Here is her latest Fire Protection Poster.

You can see various sections of the pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rd007/tags/fireprotectionpaintingbysoneri/

Peoples Education Society

I came across this Peoples Education society Institutions through comments of a visitor to my blog. Its looks like a really wonderful idealogy.

Mission
To provide students with a sense of history, an understanding of values and ethics, a commitment to law and morality,an appreciation of human creativity and an analytical inquiring mind.

Vision
To create professionally superior and ethically strong global manpower.

Quality Policy
Our quality policy is to develop highly skilled human resources with the ability to adapt to an intellectually and technologically changing environment with the participative efforts of the management, staff, students and parents.

Posted by Ramdhan Yadav at 11:55 AM Perma Link | Write A Comment (1)

thank

Posted by home laser hair removal.

Cheap electricity through mini stations?

Less smoke for more power

ASHOK B SHARMA

Here, at last, is a solution to provide cheap electricity in rural areas.

Mini-power stations can now be set up to cater to a cluster of villages. A new technology has been developed to harness wind pressure for tapping billions of idle kilowatts of power through a ‘hybrid energy wheel’.

“The unit cost of power generation is cheap. It costs only one rupee,” says the innovator of the technology”, Ashok Kumar Rai, and adds that the fly wheel has the capacity of 700 to 800 HP.

The mini-power stations can work on 100% efficiency as compared to 80% efficiency in case of large conventional power plants. “The average power generated by large

conventional plants is 77,000 MW at a loss of 30% In contrast, the mini-power stations if set up across the country can generate 1.36 lakh MW. This can fulfill the government’s objective of rural electrification”, say Mr Rai.

The cost of setting up of a mini-power station is only Rs 50 lakh. To make it more affordable to the rural masses, Mr Rai has transferred the technology to Revlite Energy Solutions of which he is the technical director.

He has discussed with the government undertakings like the Power Finance Corporation, the Rural Electrification Corporation and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) for providing financial assistance to the project and subsidy for the rural consumers.

“If the government agencies do not come forward, Revlite will seek collaboration with a foreign firm for setting up mini-power stations in select five lakh village clusters in the next 20 years,” says Revlite project director, P N A Tharakan.

The promoter of Revlite, B S Sethia says: “The company is all set for venturing into the project and it proposes to create a network of resource potential to cover the whole country under the guidance and support of the Union government if it so agrees to help the cause.”

Mr Tharakan says that the project will not only help in electrifying rural homes, the farmers can be assured of regular power supply need to water their fields. Rural electrification will result in Internet-connectivity and the rural homes can view through television on a regular basis. “The low capital investment and eco-friendly nature of the technology are the main advantages, besides the direct benefit of jobs for millions of unemployed rural youth,” he says.

There is yet another benefit from this technology, points out Mr Tharakan. In the last World Summit on Sustainable Development held two years ago in Johannesburg in South Africa it was decided to set up global partnership for ensuring clean indoor air. According the US Environmental Protection Agency has announced $1.3 million funding for 11 pilot projects to seek ways to reduce people’s exposure to indoor air pollution. In this context, Mr Tharakan says “the rural electrification through this project will help to reduce the thick acrid smokes generated through burning firewood and coal in rural kitchens. The rural folk will use cheap power for cooking replacing the traditional mode.”

The Sell Foundation, set up by an oil company to promote safer environment, is also running clean stove pilots in six countries like Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya and Mexico. But according to Mr Tharakan, the new project designed by Revlite Energy Solution is a better option and has multi-purpose utility.

The burning of wood and coal generates noxious fumes at concentrations up to 500 times the allowable limit. These fumes cause and bronchitis and pneumonia, as per reports of the World Health Organisation. The World Energy Assessment estimates that the amount of smoke from these fires is equal to two packs of cigarettes a day.



URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=74031
----------------------------------------
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blnus/02051707.htm
Revlite develops cost effective wind power tech

NEW DELHI: A private firm has claimed to have developed a simple, cheap and effective technology to generate high-speed wind to propel power generators, promising a boost to the village economy.

A giant flywheel called hybrid energy wheel could artificially create wind at a speed of up to 150 km to enable wind generators produce 0.25 to 0.5 mw with a small investment of Rs 25 lakh, a press release issued today by Revlite Energy Solutions said.

The Technical Director of the company, Mr Ashok K Rai, said the technology would enable windmill generators to be put anywhere in the country using the Hybrid Energy Flywheel as attachment to produce wind at a speed up to 150 km needed for generating power.

The technology is expected to eliminate all handicaps associated with tapping energy from natural wind.

Once commercially tapped, the technology could make villages self-sufficient in power which can be put to various uses like providing drinking water and setting up cold storage plants.

The self-sufficiency in power generation would create industry, jobs and result in huge savings in subsidy provided on kerosene, Mr Rai said.

Mr Rai claimed that the product had already been patented by him. He proposes to create a country-wide network to promote the giant flywheel with the help of Non-Conventional Energy Resources Department to generate power in villages. - PTI

SQL Query to find table/column data

SELECT TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME,DATA_LENGTH,DATA_TYPE

FROM ALL_TAB_COLUMNS

WHERE DATA_LENGTH > 4000

AND DATA_TYPE = 'VARCHAR2'

This table gives you all the detail information about any table and the columns of the table. To be more specific, you can restrict your search criteria for a specific schema, like you can add WHERE OWNER = 'RAMDHAN' in the following query.

Pragmatic Project Automation

You're on the hook to deliver a software release for a critical demo tomorrow morning. The suits in sales are frothing at the mouth to show off your company's new whiz-bang application to some very important people with deep pockets. Just as you're finding your rhythm behind the keyboard, your boss stops by to remind you that this demo could make or break the project. No pressure!

Got the idea, and see how you sbould be prepared for the situation @ ONJava.com: Got Project Automation?

What the U.S. can learn from India's electronic voting machines

Via: Jayshree Remember the Cold War tale of Soviet and American scientists racing to solve the problem of writing in zero gravity? NASA spent a decade and millions of dollars developing the high-tech Astronaut Pen. The Soviets solved the problem another way: They used a pencil.

The story turns out to be (mostly) urban legend, but the lesson holds true. Sometimes less is more. That seems to be the case as the world's largest democracy, India, and the world's most powerful, the United States, scramble to solve another technological puzzle: How to count votes accurately and transparently.

While we in the United States agonize over touch screens and paper trails, India managed to quietly hold an all-electronic vote. In May, 380 million Indians cast their votes on more than 1 million machines. It was the world's largest experiment in electronic voting to date and, while far from perfect, is widely considered a success. How can an impoverished nation like India, where cows roam the streets of the capital and most people's idea of high-tech is a flush toilet, succeed where we have not?

Read @ The Bombay Ballot - What the U.S. can learn from India's electronic voting machines. By Eric Weiner

Blog in Telugu/Your Language

These days I am seeing lot of blogs coming up in native languages, so I went and tried to see if there are options to do that, but could not find any. So I asked a blogger Kiran and he sent me the following info

Step1: Install yudit http://www.yudit.org/.
http://dsl.serc.iisc.ernet.in/~naveen/telugu.html probably this URL might help you in setting up yudit on your machine

Step2: Type in yudit editor

Step 3: Cut and paste it in blogger.com

Step4: Post that's it you are now posting in telugu.

ps: there might be some other good methods, but this is what I am following.

Hope this will be useful and mail me(not me its Kiran) in case you have any problems.

Nexttime when I go home, i am gonna show this to my parents, they are gonna love this thing. It takes some effort to do this, but its pretty cool.

May be try using Yudit for blogging in your own lanugage.

Shake Baby Shake!

Shake Baby Shakeibabe

Bush Vs Osama in Bihar's Diwali

Source: Bush vs Osama in Lalooland! : HindustanTimes.com

US President George Bush and his bete noir Osama bin Laden have come together in the most unlikely of places in this Diwali season that marks the victory of good over evil — in Bihar markets selling firecrackers!

The Osama bomb is fighting the Bush bomb for prominence in shops selling crackers and other incendiary delights in the days before Diwali.

But it seems that the Osama bomb named after the world's most hunted man is winning hands down.

According to shopkeeper Manohar Singh in Patna, the Osama bomb is in high demand. "Though it costs Rs 1,000 (a little over $20) per packet, it is selling like hot cakes," he said.

Agreed another cracker retailer Sanjit: "Whether one buys it or not, everyone wants to touch it and know about it."

Of course, it is a very powerful bomb with a great sound, he added.

Farmers in AP use Coke, Pepsi to 'kill insects'

About an year ago there was a big blow when it was declared that Coke and Pepsi got significant amounts of pesticides in them and lots of cartoons were also published about them being actually used as pesticides. Well, looks like Indian farmers did not ignore that cartoons, they actually went ahead and used coke/pepsi to protect their crops. Read here:
Farmers in AP use Coke, Pepsi to 'kill insects' - Newindpress.com

Cotton farmers in some villages are flocking to buy Coca-Cola and Pepsi, believing that the sugar in the fizzy drinks kills pests.

Farmers say scientists advised them to mix pesticides with a sugary syrup to control pests, and they found the mixture cheaper and more effective than pure chemicals - although soft drink makers and scientists dismissed the claims.

N Hamunayya, who has become a celebrity in his village in the southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh, said his crop survived an attack of pests which had resisted other remedies.

"We found that all the colas had uniform effect on pests. The pests became numb and fell to ground," he said.

He said the drinks had all the elements they needed: they were cheaper, sticky, fizzy, and attracted ants, which devoured the larvae of the pests.

But Thirupathi Reddy, assistant director of the Regional Agri Research station, Guntur, says tests had refuted such claims.

"We conducted some field trials on cotton crop at our research station. There was no boosting of productivity or eradication of pests," he says.

Statements from Coca-Cola and Pepsi said there was "no scientific basis" for this practice.

But their vendors are enjoying booming sales.

Read here all news items on the same subject at google news: http://news.google.com/news?q=india+coke+pesticide&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=nn&oi=newsr

Nine Indians among top 100 innovators

Source: Nine Indians among top 100 innovators - Sify.com

It's been a good year for Indians abroad, with Bobby Jindal getting elected to the US Congress and steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal topping the UK rich list and many achievements by Indian scientists on foreign shores.

One such recent blip on the world screen was the selection of nine Indians in this year's list of 100 top innovators under the age of 35, chosen by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Technology Review magazine.

Be it Srinidhi Varadarajan who built the world's third-fastest supercomputer for USD 5 million or Smruti Vidwans with her new approach to develop drugs against tuberculosis, the chosen hundred represent a group whose innovative work in technology has a profound impact in today's world.

One Indian name on the list is that of 28-year-old Vikram Sheel Kumar, CEO, Dimagi who founded the organisation in Boston to develop interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS. His systems are being used in rural India and South Africa.

An alumnus of IIT-Delhi and Columbia University, Kumar was inspired by his neurosurgeon father to blend engineering and medicine.

"Dimagi was formed with the vision to develop appropriate technology to solve practical global health issues around maternal and child health, HIV/AIDS, diabetes and mental disease," Kumar told PTI via email. "

We also designed a handheld tool to ensure the confidentiality of data when reporting HIV test results by health workers in the field in S Africa. We are currently building a smart-card based patient registration system to integrate the care between various health programs in Zambia where nearly one in five people has HIV/AIDS," he adds.

Another Indian, thirty-four-year old Chaitali Sengupta, a Systems Architect at Texas Instruments, oversees the architecture of communications chips used in advanced cellular systems now coming to market.

The chips let multimedia cell phones more easily handle Internet access, videoconferencing, and mobile commerce. An alumnus of IIT-Kharagpur and Rice University in Houston, Sengupta and her team designed techniques for reducing power consumption and improving performance of 3G mobiles.

"The worldwide effort to bring services like 3G to the market will benefit many aspects of our lives - staying in constant touch with friends and family anywhere in the world, sharing pictures and video clips over the air and video-conferencing while traveling," says Sengupta.

"The recent impressive proliferation of mobile services in India shows that Indians are readily embracing wireless technology, and 3G will only add to the many different ways wireless will enhance and add convenience to our lives," she adds.

The million-dollar question is whether Indian scientists and innovators would have been able to achieve success had they stayed back in India.

"The biggest challenge an Indian student faces is finding the space to develop an independent mind. Resources abound and so do inspiring minds. The secret is to be foolish and stubborn enough to believe one can do what has not been done before," says Kumar.

"As regards research, India has brilliant minds that need direction and adequate resources. A critical component of direction is patience and a hard work ethic - none of the awardees achieved their goals overnight," he adds.

Sengupta too is positive about the future of engineering students in India and thinks they can certainly avail of the best resources possible.

"Engineering education in India is at the same level as the best in the world and I am excited to see the engineering R&D being done in India and by engineers of Indian origin, around the world," says Sengupta.

"Today, I believe an engineering student in India, is equipped by our education system and societal support to compete with the best in the world," she adds.

Still, it is perhaps unfortunate that the same individuals who live in relative obscurity abroad, find it easier to bring their projects to fruit in the United States than in the country of their origin.

Kumar thinks that he has a solution to the brain-drain issue.

"Leaders in research and development need a strong commitment to original, high-quality science. The next five years will determine whether India sells itself short for quick profits, or adopts long-term strategies to move up the value chain. Once scientists feel the nation is moving along the latter path, the brain-drain will immediately reverse," says Kumar.

If past record is anything to go by, some of these innovators will create history soon. Among those named in the list in earlier years were Google conceptualisers Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

Does that mean Indians as a racial group are making a big splash in the field of tech innovation? Not everyone thinks so.

"The answers are highly variable depending on the specific case. And Indians as a whole cannot be grouped into being innovators or not," says Prof Tejal Desai, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Boston University who was among the list of judges that selected the final hundred on the list.

Kumar himself advises against being too complacent with moderate success.

"We still have a lot to do before we are truly representative of our sheer numbers in the world, and comprise one of every six awardees on the list," he says.

http://www.chickenfight.com/

Enjoy: Chicken Fight

The True Weapons of Mass Destruction

Atanu Dey writes: The True Weapons of Mass Destruction

A report by Josey Joseph in the Oct 14th Times of India warmed the cockles of my heart. The story is about the supply of military equipment from the US to Pakistan. Quote:

... On the pipeline are more than $1.5 billion worth of military supplies over five years. Plus, numerous futuristic deals.

The arms supply is now in full flow and icing on the cake is the F-16 fighters that Pakistan Air Force has been dreaming of for long. The Navy can look forward to a new generation of torpedoes to maritime aircraft.

But the biggest gainer would be the Army: a generational upgrade in almost its entire armoury including top of the line attack helicopters, radars.

Richard Armitage in a recent interview to a Pakistani TV channel said there are "more helicopters in the queue. We have gotten now a steady stream of dependable funding to help the Pakistani armed forces... We realise they need the proper equipment, so we have embarked on a five-year programme of support."

Armitage was referring to the $1.5 billion military aid that Pakistan is receiving over the next five years.

While Americans justify them in the name of terrorism, the supply is adding teeth to Pakistan's offensive capabilities that are almost completely focused on India.

Why is the US so hell-bent on supporting the terrorist nation of Pakistan? What is in it for the US? After all, Pakistan is also broke. Why, one could ask in puzzlement, would anyone want to sell military hardware to Pakistan? My answer is this: so that India would be forced to buy weapons from the US to keep up with the terrorist nation of Pakistan.

The story goes like this. The US gives away $1.5 billion worth of weapons to Pakistan. In effect, the US is paying its own producers of weapons, who in turn support the US policy makers by locating their factories of weapons of mass destruction in the policy makers' constituency. Read more jobs for the merchants of death. Then India's defense establishment looks over the border and says we now need $2.5 billion worth of stuff from the US. More jobs for the merchants of death. Total benefit to the merchants of death: $4.0 billion. Total cost to the impoverished populations of Pakistan and India: $4 billion.

At the risk of appearing unsophisticated, I am going to quote myself in full from a post titled, Why don't they feel the pain? (Jan 2004):

Ever wonder why poor nations are poor and rich nations are rich? I don't. I believe I know why the poor stay poor and the rich get rich. Consider this from The Wall Street Journal of Jan 19th. The report is titled India and US to Improve Ties. Here is an excerpt:

Washington also sees India becoming a big buyer of U.S.-made arms. In the past two years, India has purchased roughly $200 million of American arms and is in negotiations to purchase P3 Orion maritime-patrol aircraft from the U.S. The deal, valued at about $1 billion, could be the biggest arms deal ever between the two nations. There you have it. The rich sell arms to the poor and the poor pay for it through the blood, sweat, and tears of its starving millions. To be sure, it is not the starving millions who are interested in fighting the poor of the neighboring countries. These millions of poor unfortunates are merely the slave labor that supply through their toil goods that the rich buy in exchange for the arms they ship to the armies of the poor nations.

It is interesting to ask who exactly wants war. Speaking personally, I am against aggression and don't wish to be the victim nor the perpetrator of aggression. I also believe that the vast majority of people would happily live and let live. So how does it happen that nations arm themselves to their teeth and more often than not beggar their neighbors and themselves in doing so.

I believe it is so because nations are not monolithic entities. People have different stations in a country. The generals who wage wars and the politicians who direct the ship of state do not have to pay for the wars themselves. The poor have to die on the battle fields and those who are not paid to die, starve on the streets so that their meagre production can be shipped out to pay for the weapons of mass destruction that the leaders of the nation buy for their own amusement.

The leaders who make the decisions do not feel the pain that the ordinary citizen feels. The leaders are shielded from the effects of their own folly. And so it goes. Now in the Indian subcontinent we have two desperately poor heavily armed hugely overpopulated countries. In time to come it would be hard for people to imagine what was the reason behind this sort of stockpiling of nuclear weapons by such impoverished people. I think that it ceases to be a puzzle when one considers that those who do the stockpiling of nuclear weapons and those who are poor constitute entirely disjoint sets.

The unfortunate thing is that as weapons become more sophisticated and hence more expensive, the poorer the poor of the poor countries become. And at the same time, and understandably so, the rich of the rich nations and the rich of the poor nations become wealthier.

Look carefully at the military-industrial complex of a rich nation such as the US. General Dynamics GD (or some such company which makes, say, figher jets) invests a couple of billion dollars to build F15s (Note: all names are made up.) Let's say that F15s are the last word in the world of fighter planes. So the US military buys 200 of these killing machines for $50 million a pop. So will GD now retire their assembly line and stop making a killing? No way in hell. They sell a few hundred of these to the allies of the US. Now will they stop? Not bloody likely.

Here is what they do. Now that they are done with selling to the US military and to the militaries of friendly countries, they tell the US government, "Look, everyone has F15s. We need F16s if we have to maintain air superiority." So they start working on developing the next generation. So the US now has F16s, which are better than the F15s. What about selling the F15s to those third world countries that keep fighting amongst themselves? Sweet deal.

Enter India and Pakistan. India buys F15s from the US or its equivalent from say the French; Pakistan goes for the other. So now both India and Pakistan are forced to keep up with the expensive sophisticated weapons that the US and other weapon manufacturing states create, only one generation behind. The weapons manufacturers in the rich countries systematically upgrade their technology and create even more lethal weapons which cost unimaginable amounts. Poor third world overpopulated impoverished nations around the world -- who cannot afford to feed their starving millions -- buy weapons of mass destruction from rich nations who can afford to replace their weapon systems as frequently as a rich man replaces his cars.

The poor overpopulated misgoverned third rate countries follow the simple policy of beggar-thy-neighbor and end up achieving destitution all round. India and Pakistan are prime example of this. Within India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, nearly a billion highly impoverished malnourished illiterate people scratch out a Hobbesian existence. Yet, these countries spend billions in acquiring ever more sophisticated arms from abroad. The sheer insanity of this is so incomprehensible that it is surreal. Consider this report from The Times of India of Jan 21st, 2004: Gorshkov is launch pad for nuke deal

... while India's $1.5 billion purchase of the Gorshkov [an aircraft carrier] from Russia may seem like a big deal, the fact is it's just a sweetener for the main course. On the anvil: a major beefing up of India's nuclear delivery capability, with Russia likely to lease at least two nuclear submarines and several N-capable bombers to India. I will spare you the rest of this front-page article. It is dismal reading for anyone who is even remotely aware of the hunger and deprivation of the people of this region of the world.

Can you imagine how much human suffering can be avoided by merely spending a few billion dollars in say bringing pure drinking water, schools for all children, food for the malnourished kids, contraceptive services for women, and so on ...?

These are the weapons of mass destruction -- these weapons destroy whether they are actually used in conflict or not. Merely buying them condemns hundreds of millions to lives of such misery that one wonders whether it would not be better for the weapons to be used so as to put an end to the misery.

Is there a way out? I think that the leaders of impoverished countries should be required to feel the pain that the poor routinely feel. I think that anyone who wishes to be a leader has to spend a month every year living the life of an average person in the bottom decile of the population. For instance, they should have no access to clean drinking water for that month, have no heating or airconditioning, no toilets, inadequate food, have to live in filth, and no medical services. Clearly these worthies lack imagination and so they should have to live the life for just one month every year that they wish to be leaders of poor overpopulated impoverished countries.

Perhaps then, maybe then, they would be not so gung-ho about buying nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines.

{end of quoted stuff} It is a deadly game that the US plays with Pakistan and India as the pawns. I analysed it some years ago in a piece titled Dollar Auctions and Deadly Games which it worth a look.

Thank you, goodbye, and may your god go with you.

Google Desktop Proxy

Project Computing - Google Desktop Proxy

Background and motivation

The Google Desktop allows you to search the contents of your hard drive, email and browser history contents.

The search interface runs in your browser. The Google Desktop software provides a web server which binds to your PC's TCP/IP loopback interface and can only be accessed by requests originating from your PC.

Hence, other machines can't send search requests to your Google Desktop search engine.

This is generally a good thing from a privacy point of view: do you really want random people looking at not just the contents of files on your PC but at emails and at web pages you've retrieved and even deleted from your browser cache?

Well, maybe. Maybe you like to share everything. If so, read on.

If Google Desktop were accessible from places other than the machine on which it was installed, some interesting possibilities would arise:

• Install it on a web site and use it to index/search/cache copies of the static pages (and unless you are very careful, the web server logs, configuration settings, scripts with embedded passwords...)
• Install it on a workgroup file server and use it to index/search/cache copies the contents (including secret memos, tedious MSPowerpoint presentations, suprising job applications and resumes, commercial-in-confidence tender information...)
• Install it on your PC's at work and home and your laptop and search/retrieve on any from the others (along with anyone else who uses/steals/spoofs the right IP addresses)
• Use it as the basis for a distributed, maybe a P2P search service

The Java program described here allows others to search your Google Desktop.

It contains some very simple restrictions which may allow you to make it harder for some people to search and retrieve content from your PC:

1. Requests to configure Google Desktop preferences or delete content from the Google Desktop index are blocked unless they originate from the local machine
2. By default (as installed) access is only granted to the local machine. However, a parameter file can be supplied which defines which IP addresses or IP address prefixes are allowed access. Be aware, however, that it is optimistic in the extreme to have confidence in associating IP addresses with people or organisations, and that for example, a compromised machine within a trusted IP range can easily broaden access to "the world".
3. A log file can be specified in the parameter file (but be aware that if the parameter file is stored on the PC, it too will be indexed and retrievable via the proxy, as will the proxy parameter file...). The log records date/time, remote IP address and the start of the request so you can see which horses have bolted in vaguely which direction.

How it works

This program is a very simple proxy. A browser or other program on another computer can open a connection to this program which passes the request through to the Google Desktop web server on the same machine as the proxy. Because it is on the same machine, the Google Desktop web server processes the request and passes the result back to the proxy which in turn sends it back to the originating requestor.

Who Would You Choose ?

Take a few minutes break and read this, and think about it:

A group of children were playing near two railway tracks, one still in use while the other disused.

Only one child played on the disused track, the rest on the operational track.

The train came, and you were just beside the track interchange. You could make the train change its course to the disused track and thus save most of the kids. However, that would also mean the lone child playing by the disused track would be sacrificed. Or would you rather just let the train go its way?

Let's take a pause to think what kind of decision we could make.............

How do you decide?
No cheating...

What is your decision?

Most people might choose to divert the course of the train, and sacrifice only one child. You might think the same way, I guess.

Exactly, I thought the same way initially because to save most of the children at the expense of only one child was a rational decision most people would make, morally and emotionally.

But, have you ever thought that the child choosing to play on the disused track had in fact made the right decision to play at a safe place?

Nevertheless, he would have to be sacrificed because of his ignorant friends who chose to play where the danger was.

This kind of dilemma happens around us everyday.

In the office, community, in politics and especially in a democratic society, the minority is often sacrificed for the interest of the majority, no matter how foolish or ignorant the majority is, and how farsighted and knowledgeable the minority is.

The child who chose not to play with the rest on the operational track would be sidelined if the train was diverted.

And in the case that he should be sacrificed, no one would shed a tear for him.

The friend who forwarded me the story said he would not try to change the course of the train because he believed that the kids playing on the operational track should have known very well that the track was still in use and that they should have run away if they heard the train's sirens.

If the train was diverted to the disused track, that lone child would definitely die because he never thought the train could come over to that track!

Moreover, that track was not in use probably because it was not safe. If the train was diverted to that track, we could put the lives of all passengers on board at stake!

And in your attempt to save a few kids by sacrificing one child, you might end up sacrificing hundreds of people to save these few kids.

While we are all aware that life is full of tough decisions that need to be made, we may not realize that hasty decisions may not always be the right one.

"Remember that what's right isn't always popular... and what's popular isn't always right."

Business Using Google

I have come across this site: Software Applications | Software Solutions which is driven completely based on revenue generated by google ads. I will have to develop something like this for BPODigest.

AntFlow™: Hotfolder Driven Workflow and Automation

Onion Networks AntFlowâ„¢: Hotfolder Driven Workflow and Automation builds upon Apache Ant to provide a new approach to simplifying system automation that uses pipelines of hot folders chained together to perform a given task. Using XML, AntFlow associates an automated task, such as data transfer, encryption, or XML processing with a directory on the local system. Whenever a file is copied or written into the hot folder, the associated task is executed and the file is moved to the next hot folder in the pipeline for further processing. AntFlow enhances Ant in the following ways:

• 
  
• Hot Folder Triggers: AntFlow allows users to automate processes based on a file being added or changed within a folder on disk. This provides an intuitive and user-friendly way for end-users to interact with applications and can greatly simplify integration between applications that can output and injest files.
  
• Powerful Task Scheduling: Through the use of the embedded Quartz scheduler, AntFlow allows repeating tasks such as backup, file transfer, or web service calls to be scheduled according to a flexible set of rules.
  
• Workflow and Error Handling: AntFlow adds the capability to create workflows by chaining together hot folders, allowing complex manual processes to be automated. Error handling workflows can also be set up to send out e-mails or pager notifications when critical problems occur.
  

Math World

I have come across this cool website, a good resource for mathi junkies:
MathWorld. This site is promoted by

Math Formulas for MBA

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
Formulas for area for traiangle:

#1 Area of a traingle of side a, b, c lengths:
sqrt(s(s-a)(s-b)(s-c)) where s = 1/2(a+b+c) ie. 1/2 perimeter of the traingle

#2 Area of an isosceles triangle with equals sides of length a = root(3)/4 * a

#3 Area of a triangle of base b, height h = 1/2 * b * h

Probability Question:

Imagine a parking lot with 500 cars with license plates numbered from 001 to 500 and no two cars having the same license plate number. At 6 pm, they all leave the lot one by one. What is the probability that the license plate numbers of the first four cars to leave are in increasing order of magintude?

1/8
1/24
1/64
1/128

I am quoting a legend here :

Any four cars have an equal chance of leaving the lot first, so we can concentrate on just one specific bunch of four cars. (Whether there are 999 or just 4 cars in the lot is irrelevant). For a given set of four cars, they can leave the lot in 4! or 24 ways, only one of which the license plate numbers will be in increasing order. Hence, the answer is 1/24.

In how many ways can 4 groups of 2 each be selected from a group of 8 students?
1. 1980
2. 2520
3. 3050
4. 3670
5. 3980

[2] 2520 is the correct answer. good work.

I quote the legend akamai here:

Selecting multiple groups is EXACTLY the same as selecting one group. Let's say you are selecting 2 people from a group of 8. You are actually selected one group of 2 and one group of 6 (Which is an intuitive way of proving why 8C2 = 8C6). In the denominator of combinations with multiple groups, simply put the factorials of the number of people in each group.

2C8 = choose 2 to be IN and choosing 6 to be OUT or 8!/(2!6!)

To choose 4 groups of 2 from 8, the formula is simply 8!/(2!2!2!2!)

If you think of combinations as "adjusted" permutations, we have 8! ways to arrange 8 people, but each of the 4 pairs is an equivalent combination so we need to divide by 2^4.

General equation for circle is : (x-x1)^2 + (y-y1)^2 = r^2 where (x,y) and (x1,y1) are two coordinates.