Classic

Pun of the week

Economist.com | Face value

Bikram’s licensing of his sequence, says Jim Harrison, a lawyer for OSYU, is thus less like selling the rights to a song and more like lecturing about the “Kama Sutra” and then trying to charge couples a fee every time they have sex in one of the positions. Or, returning to that fast-food metaphor, like Bikram writing a new recipe for hamburgers and then showing up at barbecues to charge the people flipping the burgers
Intellectual-property law is crucial to economic success. But extending it to yoga will, ”The Economist’s spiritually enlightened, physically limber journalists hope, prove too much of a stretch

Groan :(

Rediff.com offers one GB e-mail space

Rediff.com India Ltd has increased the e-mail space provided on its portal for free users to one GB from five MB and that of its premium users to two GB from 10 MB, even as the company hiked the single outgoing and incoming e-mail message size to 10 MB.

This was predicted (by Kings for example).

And why am I groaning? Because now Indiatimes will also do it and when Indiatimes does things, it doesn’t just do them. It talks about them. Everywhere. In the papers. On radio. On webistes.

Everywhere.

And it is occurring to me more and more that Yahoo raising it to 100 MB is a bad idea. Say 1 GB and it sounds like “infinite” 100 MB sounds just like 100 MB.

Yahoo and its 100 MB

Ok, I am happy that Yahoo has upgraded to 100 MB and all, but why did they have to make the interface so ugly? And how is the layout better?
And I am noticing that the 100 MB is actually turning out to be counterproductive. This is how:
Colleague: (Who has never heard of gmail and has been content with Yahoo so far) “Wow! Yahoo has upgraded me to 100 MB!”
Me: (With a smug look on my face) 100 MB! Bah! That’s nothing. I have 1 GB! For I have Gmail!
Colleague: Where?
Me: Want an invite?
Colleague: Gimme Gimme Gimme!

I am liberal with invites these days because there really seems to be a glut. Handing out invites like this instead of going live seems like a good marketing tactic. I wouldn’t have talked much about my gmail account if not for the invites.

Question


  • There is a bunch of related surnames that exist in different forms in various parts of the country – all over North India, South Kanara district of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu. Perhaps more, if I do more research.
  • It is not immediately apparent that the surnames are derived from the same source. But once I mention it, it will sort of “pop out”.
  • The people bearing the surnames aren’t really related, nor do they think of themselves as belonging to the same caste.
  • But typically, they belong to the business class.
  • The surname comes from a Sanskrit word, meaning “merchant”
  • One of the North Indian surnames is also a generic Hindi word which sort of means merchant.

Give me the bunch of related surnames. Just giving me the North Indian or South Indian versions will not do. I need at least one of both.
Bonus points if you can give me the Sanskrit word also.

What about being pentalingual?

MSNBC – Being bilingual may keep your mind young

Two languages are better than one when it comes to keeping the brain young, Canadian researchers reported Monday.
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Older adults who grew up bilingual had quicker minds when tested than people who spoke only one language, the researchers found. They showed less of the natural decline associated with aging.(via Jivha)

I grew up learning five languages (Kannada, Hindi, English Marathi and Tulu) in my childhood. I can read all four out of the five. (Tulu has no script, so no one can read it) I can speak 3 out of 5 fluently (Kannada, English and Hindi) and write 3 out of 5 well (English, Hindi and Marathi)
I am not bragging. Just saying…