Friday, November 28, 2008
My talk at FOSS.in
Hey, I will be talking at FOSS.in today! The talk can be heard live online. Just point your media player to http://radioverve.com/foss.in.pls!
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
One of my best photos
I obviously have thousands of photos of her by now, but this one most deserves to be here on my blog as well.
Friday, November 14, 2008
My crazy thoughts
For lack of a better one, this blog post will go with this stupid title. These are some random thoughts that have run through my mind. Only when I tried to express them in writing did I realize how vague these thoughts are.
Lets say an air plane crashes somewhere in the world and 50 people die. Lets say another 50 people die in a train or bus accident. Guess which of these gets the maximum coverage in our news media?
Lets say 20 people die on a particular day in a bus accident in Bangalore. Let's say another 20 individuals die in various isolated (lets say, 10) accidents across Bangalore on the same day. Now guess which of these becomes the major news story in news papers and news channels and which doesn't?
Lets say 20 people die in a bomb blast in some city. On the same day, more people would have died due to reasons like deadly diseases in the same city. Which one becomes the 'breaking news' that evening? More US soldiers die in motorcycle accidents than in Iraq. While there is a huge hue and cry over the latter, the former hardly ever gets mentioned.
Let's consider another scenario. MNS activists beating up a North Indian in Mumbai is a much bigger news than dacoits breaking into a house in Mumbai, killing it's residents and running away with valuables. Isn't that strange? Hari has wondered why Article 355 was not imposed on Maharashtra Government because it did not protect the North Indians from miscreants. I wonder how different it is from protecting the locals from dacoits. If the purpose behind the crime determines it's significance, there are a number of such hate crimes which don't hog any limelight.
A techie doing anything, including committing suicide is a much bigger news than a non-techie doing it.
Well, I don't just blame the media for this. It is how most people think as well. A lot of people may think this is just normal. However, it intrigues me to know that the value of life (or death) depends on the mode in which it was lost and what the profession of the person was. The world is a strange place.
Lets say an air plane crashes somewhere in the world and 50 people die. Lets say another 50 people die in a train or bus accident. Guess which of these gets the maximum coverage in our news media?
Lets say 20 people die on a particular day in a bus accident in Bangalore. Let's say another 20 individuals die in various isolated (lets say, 10) accidents across Bangalore on the same day. Now guess which of these becomes the major news story in news papers and news channels and which doesn't?
Lets say 20 people die in a bomb blast in some city. On the same day, more people would have died due to reasons like deadly diseases in the same city. Which one becomes the 'breaking news' that evening? More US soldiers die in motorcycle accidents than in Iraq. While there is a huge hue and cry over the latter, the former hardly ever gets mentioned.
Let's consider another scenario. MNS activists beating up a North Indian in Mumbai is a much bigger news than dacoits breaking into a house in Mumbai, killing it's residents and running away with valuables. Isn't that strange? Hari has wondered why Article 355 was not imposed on Maharashtra Government because it did not protect the North Indians from miscreants. I wonder how different it is from protecting the locals from dacoits. If the purpose behind the crime determines it's significance, there are a number of such hate crimes which don't hog any limelight.
A techie doing anything, including committing suicide is a much bigger news than a non-techie doing it.
Well, I don't just blame the media for this. It is how most people think as well. A lot of people may think this is just normal. However, it intrigues me to know that the value of life (or death) depends on the mode in which it was lost and what the profession of the person was. The world is a strange place.
Monday, November 03, 2008
Photo from Deepavali
One of my better photos from this Deepavali. I was randomly exposing it for 2 seconds and I happened to catch this firework by luck. No doubt there is noise because it was at ISO200, but what else can you expect from a puny Canon A520? The view is from the terrace of my home, looking north towards BTM 2nd Stage.
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