Do you know how much Google plans to raise with its IPO? The answer is here
For the sake of my readers’ sanity, I refrain from making any jokes about irrationality and any plays on ‘e’, but those interested can follow the trackbacks to the link to the Marginal Revolution post I have provided.
(The subject was the angelic face, the exposition was mine
He was my confidante, now he is my rival in love)
Just as I was typing the “edit” part of the previous post, I realised that “oversight” has two senses ( 1. Supervise 2. Overlook) which often end up meaning two opposite things.
Question: Name the word, which when used in the software sense, means the exact opposite of what it did originally.
Phones are now the dominant technology with which young people, and urban youth in particular, now define themselves. What sort of phone you carry and how you customise it says a great deal about you, just as the choice of car did for a previous generation. In today’s congested cities, you can no longer make a statement by pulling up outside a bar in a particular kind of car. Instead, you make a similar statement by displaying your mobile phone, with its carefully chosen ringtone, screen logo and slip cover. Mobile phones, like cars, are fashion items: in both cases, people buy new ones far more often than is actually necessary. Both are social technologies that bring people together; for teenagers, both act as symbols of independence. And cars and phones alike promote freedom and mobility, with unexpected social consequences.
The article is in the Economist and it is a good read. But then I repeat myself.
Read it before next friday, for then it will move to the premium section.
(Edit: By a strange oversight, I had put the quoted part into “more text” instead of “blockquote”)
Ramnath wants me to know what I think of “Saving Capitalism from the Capitalists”, the link to the first chapter of which he has helpfully provided.
Now it is very difficult for me to disagree with something I agree with for the most part, but I will do it nonetheless. But in the meantime, just to warm up, I will pick on an easier target.
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Nature’s way is to make it harder the second time if you fail the first time.
For example if you are climbing and we fall and injure ourselves, carrying your injured self upwards is tougher.
Civilisation affords you the luxury of a slower-paced programme if you can’t cope with the normal one.
Civilization’s way is better, but do not expect to go that way as a matter of right.
Sorry, but if an Indian residing in the US who speaks “for the other side” is a “House Nigger”, what does that make the other Indians who reside in the US?
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Good article on Gmail and privacy.
Frankly, I am more concerned about the unfair bundling of Gmail with Blogger. I hate Blogger even more now. If Google doesn’t give me a gmail account fast, I will start hoping that the US Justice department starts investigating Google for monopolistic trade practices and discrimination against MovableType bloggers.
Japanese hostages returning from Iraq were humiliated(NY Times free registration required. Link will be inaccessible after a month) by their countrymen on their return for causing trouble to their government.
“You got what you deserve!” one Japanese held up a hand-written sign at the airport where they landed. “You are Japan’s shame,” another wrote on the Web site of one of the hostages. They had “caused trouble” for everybody. The government, not to be outdone, announced it would bill them $6,000 for airfare.
I don’t know what to think of this. On the one hand I sympathise with the sentiment that if you disregard your government’s advice and go to a dangerous place, then you shouldn’t expect the government to bail you out. On the other hand, I dislike the spirit of conformism that expects an entire country to do just what the government says.
My first attack in the You Libertarians are so Impractical! series is on Sathish VM. Last heard, he was arguing with me that one cannot decide whether killing a lot of people is wrong or not unless we know whether the decision to kill the people was democratically taken or not. Now in his blog, he seems to be tired of seeing that though more and more rules are being made, companies are finding ways to wriggle out of them. So he has proposed a Pareto test rule. In his words
We can use the pareto test here? Only those corporate activities that bring the maximum wellbeing to all stakeholders, without making even any one of them worse off – is legal. Anything else is unlawful, not just immoral! Will this work?
Ok people, it is summer, the weather is hot and I am itching for a fight because I am irritated. I am irritated because I have heard the stupid argument “You libertarians are living in an impractical world of dreams!” too many times.
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Swami asks what “strategic” use non-voting could be put to.
Why, that’s simple. Suppose that you are a hardcore BJP supporter. I mean, so hardcore that building a Ram Temple at Ayodhya is the only issue you are concerned with and is your life’s mission. Suppose further that the BJP (not just NDA) has a comfortable majority in the Lok Sabha and cannot give the compulsions of coalition politics as an excuse anymore. And yet the BJP isn’t bothering to build a temple in Ayodhya, because it has other things to do, like building a shining India and making money for its own ministers.
So what do you do? You can’t vote for the Congress because the Congress isn’t going to build a temple for you either. You can’t vote for an even more extreme right-wing party, because either it doesn’t exist or because it has no serious chance of capturing power at the Centre. Your only choice is to stay at home and hope that the BJP gets a message that it can’t take you for granted.
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