News for Me.

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The organizers of the recent TEDxMogadishu send this short and thoughtful interview video, made just before the event. Meet four people who are committed to remaking their city after 20 years of chaos.

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. in your regular expression

I only vaguely remember my first encounter with a parser generator which must by dated back to the late 1990s. I guess it was Spark by John Aycock, an Early parser. What puzzled me back then was the need to be explicit down to the character level.  Regular expression engines, albeit cryptic, were a revelation because one could specify the structural information one needed and match the rest using a ‘.’ which is the wildcard pattern that matches any character.

I came back to Any in the Trail parser generator lately. I was motivated by writing a reversible C preprocessor. Unlike conventional C preprocessors which are used in the compilation chain of C code, a reversible C preprocessor can used to refactor C code, while retaining the preprocessor directives and the macro calls. This is basically done by storing the #define directive along with the code to be substituted and the substitution. The substituted code and the substitution are exchanged after the refactoring step, such that it looks like no substitution happened at all.

A comprehensive C preprocessor grammar can be found on the following MSDN site. What is most interesting to us are the following two EBNF productions:

# define identifier[( identifier_opt, ... , identifier_opt )] token-string_opt

token-string :

String of tokens 

The String of tokens phrase this is Any+.

Bon appetite

Suppose one defines two macros

#define min(a,b) ((a)<(b)?(a):(b))

#define max(a,b) ((a)<(b)?(b):(a))

Obviously the defining string of the min macro can be recognized using token-string but how can we prevent that token-string eats the max macro as well? Once in motion token-string has a sound appetite and will eat the rest. The solution to this problem in case of regular expressions is to make Any non-greedy. The non-greediness can easily be expressed using the following requirement:

If S | Any is a pattern with S!=Any. If S can match a character, S will be preferred over Any.

In the production rule

R: ... Any* S ...

R: ... (Any* | S) ...

Non greediness in grammars

Grammars are more complicated than regular expressions and we have to take more care about our greediness rules. To illustrate some of the problems we take a look on an example

R: A B | C
A: a Any*
B: b
C: c

Detecting the trailing Any in A is easy though. We solve the follow/first conflict with a trailing Any by embedding A into R. Embedding strategies are the centerpiece of Trail and they shall not be recapitulated here. Just so much: embedding A in R doesn’t destroy any information relevant for parsing. If A has been embedded Any* will be delimited by B to the right and we can safely apply R without the danger of Any consuming a token ‘b’.

Eventually we have to re-apply our embedding strategy: if A is a rule with a trailing Any and A is embedded in B and B has a trailing Any after this embedding  then B will be embedded wherever possible.

A short experiment

Here is a mini-Python grammar is used to detect Python class definitions.

file_input: (NEWLINE | stmt)* ENDMARKER
classdef: 'class' NAME ['(' Any+ ')'] ':' suite
suite: simple_stmt | NEWLINE INDENT stmt+ DEDENT
simple_stmt: Any* NEWLINE
stmt: simple_stmt | compound_stmt
compound_stmt: classdef | Any* suite

Unlike a real Python grammar it is fairly easy to build. All rules are taken from the Python 2.7 grammar but only file_input, suite and stmt remained unchanged. In all other cases we have replaced terminal/non-terminal information that isn’t needed by Any.

Pakistan has blocked Twitter because someone holding a drawing competition might run images of the Prophet Mohammed on the site, a no-no in the Islamic faith. Facebook apparently has agreed to take down the offending images while Twitter has not, according to a Packistani official quoted by the Associated Press. From the AP story:

[Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication’s Authority] said Facebook agreed to address Pakistan’s concerns about the competition, but officials have failed to get Twitter to do the same.

“We have been negotiating with them until last night, but they did not agree to remove the stuff, so we had to block it,” said Yaseen.

Instructions to block the site came from Pakistan’s Ministry of Information Technology, said Yaseen.

Such culture clashes are not uncommon on the web or even as people use the web to share their ideas. While it may seem like a violation of someone’s freedom of expression to remove offensive images from a Twitter account, other countries have laws that might be construed the same way. Several web sites including Yahoo have run afoul of laws in France (and in other European countries) that prohibit denying the Holocaust. Meanwhile, here in the U.S. Facebook regularly has to deal with culture clashes caused by the different values of its users.

The challenge is our morals are running into each other on the web and forcing companies and governments to compromise or get out of Dodge — see Google in China or Iran deciding to build its own Internet. Much like the first year of university is an eye-opening mix of new people and cultures that students have to adapt to, the web forces different people and their ideals together. So Pakistan blocking Twitter is kind of like that guy on your dorm floor who rips down the posters by the elevator that he doesn’t like.

The question is, will he grow out of it by the end of the year or will he retreat further into his dislike of whatever was on those posters to begin with? The Internet provides a venue for argument, but it also provides an opportunity for learning and an eventual resolution. It’s up to users, governments and companies to take that opportunity.

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The topics of three different TEDTalks are converging this weekend in New York City …

Street artist JR, the winner of the 2011 TED Prize, is pasting a portrait of a young member of the Lakota tribe on a wall of Manhattan’s High Line Park — part of a massive tribute to the Native American nation that’s being pasted in North Dakota and around New York City. Watch the progress on our Pinterest. JR mentions this project in his newest TEDTalk, “One year of turning the world inside out”:

This project celebrates the lives of North Dakota Native American people. To learn more about these lives, watch this astonishing TEDx talk from National Geographic photographer Aaron Huey, whose work with nations in the Black Hills of North Dakota has led him to make this conclusion: Honor the treaties. Give back the Black Hills.

If you’re moved by this talk, learn more. Huey has teamed up with the artists Shepard Fairey and Ernesto Yerena for a series of Honor the Treaties posters you can download and share.

And finally, the Inside Out Project pasting is happening in the vast new public space called the High Line Park — whose creation is detailed in Robert Hammond’s TEDTalk “Building a park in the sky.” The High Line was born on an elevated railway platform once destined to be torn down — and it’s now inspiring more cities to take a fresh look at their unlikely green spaces.

"I did it!" - Finance Minister Mukherjee

As we have been talking recently on Drishtikone, the situation in the Indian Economy is rather precarious. And this is reflected in two indicators:

1. Free fall of the Rupee. In the trading on Friday, the Rupee hit a record low of Rs 54.90 to one USD.
2. Sky high inflation in double digits. The urban inflation – CPI of 11.1 – is even higher than the Rural Inflation – 9.86.

With both, the currency in a fall and the inflation rising so high, the rates in the economy need to be high. So, there is no room for reducing the interest rates in the economy at all.

The scenario then that we face is very reminiscent of the pre-1991 situation – Lower Growth and Galloping Inflation.

Given that there is little work that the Monetary Policy (administered by the Reserve Bank of India) can really do, it is now the Fiscal Policy (administered by the Government of the day – that should take over.

And, it is here that the Government has been messing up completely!

The government has done little to stem the rot. On the contrary, it has been pouring fuel into the fire by making it more difficult to conduct monetary policy. Not only has it prevented oil companies from raising petrol prices (alleged to be deregulated), but it has let imports rip, and done nothing to curb food inflation, which is largely focused on protein items like milk, eggs, pulses – and vegetables.

In fact, every action of the government – whether it was rollback of FDI in retail, or reversing an eminently sensible railway budget – has been to send the wrong signals to investors outside and inside the country.

With policies that have facilitated high prices and also hitting at the Foreign Investment by coming out with policies that were remarkably short sighted.

The entire Brouhaha over the the cases on Yahoo, Google and Microsoft didn’t help much either.

Cosmetic steps like increasing the interest rates with the hope that people will start investing in the Indian bonds – specially the NRIs – is rather short sighted move and banks on the stupidity of the NRIs (and others). Because anyone with a bit of math skills can figure out the loss one has to take with a falling rupee. Why would I invest at 10% in a currency that has fallen over 20% in the last 2 years??

We need real steps and a real Government. And can the legendary – but elusive now – economist called Dr. Manmohan Singh please stand up?? Or will he make sure that this time he dumps the economy into a ditch that no one can it out of?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A lot of dictators and high strung powerful caricatures in Bollywood movies announce with certain grand standing voice – “Meri Ijazzat ke bina yahan koi parinda bhi nahin aa sakta” (without my permission, not even a bird can enter my area).

Well Pakistani Government loves to make that happen in the virtual world. It seems that it has surreptiously blocked the Twitter bird to enter their country in certain areas at least. Just that they are coy about clearly saying it.

So, while the Interior Minister Rehman Malik keeps announcing from his tweets – Dear all, I assure (you) that Twitter and (Facebook) will continue in our country and it will not be blocked. (Please) do not believe in rumours – the access to Twitter in Islamabad and parts of Rawalpindi is blocked. People aren’t able to access it from either their computers or their mobile phones.

It is probably the cartoon caricatures again at the center of it all.

TV news channels had quoted Information Technology Minister Raja Parvez Ashraf as saying that the government could restrict access to Twitter and Facebook as the sites were being used to circulate blasphemous caricatures.

Meanwhile, hopefully the little bird will make its way into the “Land of Pure”.

On February 15, 2012, two Indian fishermen, Ajesh Binki, 25, and Gelastine, 45, were shot dead by Italian Naval Guards aboard the ship Enrica Lexie, named Latorre Massimillano and Salvatore Girone, off the southern Kerala coast.

The Italians claimed that they mistook the boat as those of pirates, while the owner of the fishing vessel said that the firing was unprovoked.

The Italian ship was detained and two sailors were detained under non-bailable arrest.

As the case has been going on, there has been tremendous pressure from the Italians to subvert and short circuit the judicial proceedings. In that attempt, they have used money and even the services of Roman Catholic Church.

So, not only has the Italian Government given a compensation of Rs one crore for each of the slain, but also involved two Catholic priests, Father Churchill and Father Wilfred – to have the affected families make statements which the Italians can use to subvert the case.

The involvement of the Church was brought out by an Italian magazine.

The first evidence of such an influence came out in the open when Agenzia Fides in Rome reported that Cardinal George Alencherry “has taken an interest in mediating and seeking a peaceful solution to the delicate situation.

Fides had said that the cardinal had confirmed that “he has contacted the Catholic ministers who are in the government of Kerala”, announcing his constant interest until the case is “clarified and resolved peacefully.”

With the use of Church and money, the Italians have introduced at least two things in the case, which will benefit them to weaken the Indian State’s case against the Italian Sailors:

1. The families of the fishermen have written a legal letter to the Italian Consul General to say that they do not want the Italian marines to be prosecuted.

2. The relatives have stated that the incident occurred at 33 nautical miles from the Kerala coast. The FIR against the Italian marines by the Kerala police says that the incident occurred at 20.5 nautical miles.

Italians have used every diplomatic way to close the case as soon as they can, and in their hurry have tried using money, Church and subversion to get their way.

In a country like India, where the cases regularly are subverted, this may not be a big deal. But one wonders, how long can outsiders with a bit of money and power can take the citizens on a ride.

The Union Carbide’s injustice and connivance of the high and mighty of India is still a sore. The politicians will not help. Ultimately, only the citizens of India have to stand up and say – Enough is Enough!

Even if you haven’t heard of LivePerson, chances are you’ve encountered one of its products while browsing online. It’s the company behind many of the pop-up windows offering real-time chat with a representative, as well as other forms of online customer engagement. It’s also a treasure trove of consumer data that LivePerson uses to decide which visitors are worth what type of attention.

Essentially, LivePerson data scientist Vitaly Gordon told me during a recent conversation, the goal of LivePerson is to provide the same experience as shopping in a brick-and-mortar store — only better. Better for consumers, and better for the store. That means knowing who’s just there to browse, who’s there to buy and who might need a little nudge in order to pull the trigger on a purchase. And that means analyzing a lot of data.

LivePerson has approximately 9,000 customers and, Gordon said, their combined traffic is “roughly the traffic of Facebook.” LivePerson monitors much of that traffic to flavor its secret sauce — real-time models that help it decide what type of service a visitor actually receives. If a site is using the full spectrum of LivePerson services, options range from price reductions to live chat to live video. All told, Gordon said, LivePerson adds about 2 terabytes a day to its Hadoop cluster that helps build those models.

Because LivePerson gets paid for incremental sales (i.e., sales that wouldn’t have happened if not for its intervention), Gordon said one critical model determines who’s likely to buy regardless of whether they’re approached for a chat. But that’s only part of the story, because LivePerson also has to best utilize its customers’ resources, especially when there are potentially hundreds or thousands of consumers on a site at a time. If LivePerson’s models determines someone doesn’t need a personal experience, perhaps it will just offer them a slight discount on what they’re looking for. If it’s a big fish, perhaps an uber-personal, but resource-intensive, video chat is in order.

The models rank visitors on a scale from zero to 100 for every interaction the site might offer, Gordon said, and the right interaction might change by the second “because of something you did, or [because] time just passes by,” Gordon said. For example, if someone has stuff in his shopping cart, fills out his shipping information but then returns to the homepage, that’s a sign he’s probably leaving the site. LivePerson will try to reach him before he leaves, Gordon said, but even if it can’t, the site still might be able to personalize an experience if that shopper returns.

And you didn’t think all the text from those chat transcripts was going to waste, did you? LivePerson also has products for analyzing chat transcripts and doing sentiment analysis, even a dashboard for giving customers real-time information on what consumers are talking about and how they’re feeling, Gordon said. This can inform representatives’ decisions on how to respond, or maybe even help them determine that someone isn’t ready to buy and move onto someone else.

On average, he said, LivePerson ends up increasing retail customers’ incremental revenues by 20 percent by increasing the number of sales and the amount per sale. But it’s always looking to improve, which is why it bought Israel-based predictive analytics specialist Amadesa on Wednesday. At LivePerson’s volume — its customers do billions of dollars a month in transactions — Gordon said “even a 1 percent improvement in our modeling is a big deal.”

Feature image courtesy of Shutterstock user alexsalo images.

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This guest post from Marisa Bell-Metereau is part of the “reader stories” feature at Get Rich Slowly. Some stories contain general advice; others are examples of how a GRS reader achieved financial success or failure. These stories feature folks with all levels of financial maturity and income. Want submit your own reader story? Here’s how.

Every year in February, once the holidays are over and life is slowly returning to normal, my boyfriend and I undertake a project that helps us stop lifestyle inflation and save on the order of $300 each for the month. We call this exercise “Superfrugality Month” and the rules are pretty simple.

We don’t spend any money on non-essentials during the month of February. Once March first rolls around, we can spend money on wants again. That’s it in a nutshell.

Origins
When I first graduated from college six years ago, my roommate and I noticed that we spent a lot of money eating out, and not very much money at the grocery store. In our quest to become responsible grownups, we challenged ourselves to eat only home-cooked meals — no takeout, no restaurants, no exceptions — for an entire month every year.

Once I met my boyfriend a few years later and told him about my wacky annual February challenge, he jumped on board wholeheartedly, and we expanded the concept and renamed it Superfrugality Month, where the aim is to be extremely, super frugal.

The rules:

1. No unnecessary purchases. At all. Not at the grocery store, not at the convenience store, nothing. Coffee from Starbucks, eating meals out (even lunch), and emergency gelato runs are all classified as “unnecessary purchases.” Sadly.
2. Bank the savings. The leftover money at the end of the month is split between our savings account and our annual trip fund.
3. Seriously, no unnecessary purchases. Plan accordingly.

One reason that Superfrugality Month works is that it’s a challenge with an expiration date. I can resist eating lunch at that place down the street for a month, but not for the rest of my life. Once March rolls around and I can get takeout from there again, it feels like such a fun treat, not something that has become rote and expected. Same goes for buying cookies at the grocery store and going out for coffee or brunch on Sunday morning.

Every year, March — the dreariest month in my part of the country — feels like Christmas all over again. The process of paring down my spending to the absolute essentials, and realizing how much I spend on nonessentials, really helps me curb lifestyle inflation.

This year, thanks to a serious caffeine addiction, I felt like I was owed my daily Starbucks until I denied myself it for a month and had to make coffee at home. I never went back to buying coffee out once Superfrugality Month was over this year and now I have extra money in my bank account every month.

Making it Work
As I have learned through personal trial and error, there are certain key things that make or break Superfrugality Month. They are:

• Strength in numbers. Tell everyone, friends and strangers (like your barista) that you are doing Superfrugality Month. Ask them not to tempt you with invites to lunch or dinner for the next month. You will find that most people are sensitive to your situation, and some will even want to participate themselves! Superfruality Month has become an annual event among our friends.
• Plan ahead. Map out meals like your life depends on it, especially if you tend to get weak-willed when hungry. I’ve learned to always have a granola bar in my purse and an easy boxed dinner in my cupboard.
• Find fun free things to do. Superfrugality Month doesn’t have to mean that you sit at home by yourself for 28 (or 29) days, it just means that you have to get a little creative when it comes to entertainment. Have friends over for a movie night and watch something you already own and love. Host a potluck dinner where everyone brings their favorite dish. Check out what’s going on at the local library or a museum (many of which have free days). Pick up that paintbrush or guitar that has laid long-neglected. You’d be surprised how many ways there are to entertain yourself for free once you go looking for them. I’ve rediscovered hobbies and finished many previously-abandoned projects during Superfrugality Month.

The point of Superfrugality Month isn’t to deny myself life’s pleasures; it’s more of an exercise in making sure I really enjoy the things I spend my money on instead of taking them for granted. This ties in with the fifteenth tenet of the Get Rich Slowly philosophy: You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want.

Thanks to financially-savvy parents who set a good example and a personal interest in the subject, I have a good handle on my finances. I track my spending, max out my employer-contributed retirement account and personal Roth IRA, have targeted savings accounts, and carry no debt. But lifestyle inflation still creeps in, and usually around December I find myself bemoaning the fact that I have no money left by the end of each month. I start to get a little lax because I know I’m that overall, I’m in sound financial shape.

Superfrugality Month is a way to re-evaluate spending habits, take a good look at wants vs. needs, and make sure I enjoy the wants I choose to spend money on while disregarding the rest.

What makes a city competitive for startups? VCs, angels and cheap desk space, to be sure, but also nuts-and-bolts stuff like transport and taxation.

As Om noted in December, Berlin’s airports are quite small, but the city had a plan. The two currently operational airports — Tegel and Schoenefeld — were supposed to be replaced in June by a new mega-airport, Berlin Brandenburg.

But then disaster struck. In a sore blow to anyone still harbouring stereotypes about German efficiency, officials admitted at the start of May that the airports fire safety systems were not yet ready. And yesterday it emerged that the opening date has been pushed back by an embarrassing nine months to next March.

This is humiliating for the German capital, a city that wants to reposition itself as one of the world’s premier technology hubs, and — as a result — has upset a number of local companies.

“The airport screw up is really sad and not worthy of a capital city in Europe. It looks really unprofessional,” productivity startup 6wunderkinder told me.

However, the company does not think it will have any direct impact on the startup scene – a view shared by others I spoke to. What they’re far more worried about is a new compulsory pension contribution for freelancers aged under 30, that’s set to kick in from mid-2013.

‘Crazy’ taxation

The government is forcing young freelancers to pay into their pension pot, something that has been causing quite a stir recently — infact, a petition against it has racked up almost 60,000 signatures. But what’s the problem here? Pensions are good, right?

People might be a bit more enthusiastic about the move if it weren’t for the fact that the contributions (€250-€300 a month for the pension and €100 for disability insurance) are not going to be linked to income. And the fact that the minimum earnings threshold for the scheme is just €400 a month. You do the math.

As Gidsy CEO Edial Dekker told me, it’s “crazy that freelancers have to pay for the broken pension system,” particularly given the high levels of health insurance and social security that they already have to pay.

“Instead of helping freelancers, they’re being charged with something that is very likely not going to be beneficial for them personally later,” Dekker said. “I think one of the most exciting things about our generation is that a lot of people are doing small jobs and that no one thinks about working for the same employer for the upcoming 30 years. It’s good, and should be supported.”

6wunderkinder also took the stance that being a freelancer is not just a job but “a starting point into self-fulfilment”.

“But starting as a freelancer isn’t always easy and being forced to pay a lot of money might stop a lot of people to start their own business,” the company warned.

That said, not everyone agrees on this point. Prominent local angel and Phonedeck co-founder Christophe Maire called the issue “a false problem.”

“Great companies are not — as a rule — built by freelancers but by full-time core employees dedicated to a product,” Maire argued.

“This freelancer thing is so 90s.”

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I have neglected my blog for weeks, even months. A couple of people — which just about covers the entire readership of this blog — noticed and even wrote to me asking after my health. I wish to apologize to the two of you and say, “Sorry, but it’s not my fault.” You may find it somewhat incredible but allow me to explain.

It’s not my fault that I did not find time to write. Circumstances compelled me. First there are those awful distractions. The web is full of very interesting stuff to read and watch and listen to. People keep emailing me links to visit. They are to blame. That’s a black hole that sucks in huge chunks of time. You couldn’t blame me, could you?

Then I had visitors. I think they were important visitors although you may disagree. In any case, major time sinks. Blame those visitors, not me. Then of course there’s my roommate. The guy does not pull his weight around the apartment and I have to take care of things around the house. He’s to blame.

You may say that perhaps I should be prioritizing better. You may say that I should know how I should allocate my time better and not waste it on surfing the web. But really I am an innocent victim of circumstance. Yeah, that’s it. I am a victim. I am the injured party, and I claim “the holiness of always being the injured party” as Maya Angelou so eloquently put it.

At this point you may object saying that I am making excuses, rather transparent and flimsy ones at that. Perhaps you’re right but I am taking my cues from very important and famous people. I learn from examples. My greatest inspiration is our dearly beloved fearless leader, Dr. Manmohan Singh. He is unable to do the right thing because he is — as he readily and frequently asserts — bound by circumstances.

It’s never his fault. Every crappy thing he does, he does because he is a victim of this, that or the other. He’s in control but he is not in control. He is the most powerful political figure in India and yet he is powerless to do anything at all. If you notice the contradiction in that, you are one step ahead of Dr Singh. And may I remind you that he is a shining example of probity and moral excellence. I am merely following his example in attributing his failures to everyone and everything else. I refuse to take responsibility and with that I absolve myself of taking any corrective actions whatsoever.

This refusal to take responsibility is not limited to the high and the mighty. Perfectly ordinary people do it too. A few years ago a good friend of mine came to me with his tale of woe. His marriage had hit a rough patch. His wife, Urvashi (not the actual name, to protect the utterly blameless) had arrived at the totally reasoned position that my friend was the cause of all her troubles, personal and professional. According to her, she was perfect and was an ideal wife, while he was the personification of evil. She was the victim of an evil genius. The marriage was on the rocks because he needed to change. She, on the other hand, being perfect, had nothing to change. After all, who can reasonably expect her to step down from her perfection and make changes, eh?

It does not take a marriage counselor to guess that that marriage did not end up happily.

Just recently another friend told me about her teenage son. The son was the “victim” of unreasonable parents, messed up teachers, corporate greed (cell phone companies and the makers of electronic gadgets), and so on. It was all a massive conspiracy arrayed against him and it threatened his very existence. The universe owed him happiness and it was not delivering. As he was a victim, he was blameless and he could not take any responsibilities for fixing the situation.

There are endless examples of people blaming others for their troubles. No doubt you have given in to the temptation of declaring yourself a victim some time or the other. I know I have, and I feel ashamed for doing it. It’s an universal human failing to deflect blame from oneself, “an admirable evasion,” as Shakespeare put it so beautifully. “This is the excellent foppery of the world, that, when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeit of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars; as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical pre-dominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforc’d obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.”

Playing the victim part in the great game of life isn’t just for individuals. Groups do it often enough and do it quite successfully — if success is appropriately defined. Entire collectives of people make it a way of life, of accusing others of oppressing them. Sometimes the claimed oppression cuts across great swathes of geography and centuries of time. Minorities, we are told in India, are victims, and they have been victims for hundreds of years. And having donned the mantle of the oppressed, they can not only do no wrong but are not required to do anything to help themselves. They are simply entitled, and as the aforementioned erudite and wise prime minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh — let’s not forget a victim by his own estimation and in his own right — said, “the minorities have a first claim to India’s prosperity.”

Being oppressed at once sanctifies one’s existence and relieves one of any responsibility at all. That responsibility is the burden of the other. My roommate or my spouse, or my co-workers, or my friends — they are responsible for the disaster that my life is. If only they took their responsibility seriously, I would be a success.

The immorality of this victim position aside, the consequences of this attitude are serious. Successful people don’t play the victim. Not only they don’t play the victim, they refuse to be victims. Successful people take responsibility for their failures and their shortcomings. They are in control. They choose how and on what terms they meet the world. It is not that successful people never make mistakes. They do, but built into the responsibility-taking mechanism is the way to correct for their mistakes and continue to be in control. Successful people don’t whine and complain that the universe owes them.

Unsuccessful people play the victim and, in time, consent to being victims because that’s how they define themselves. They don’t see themselves as winners but compete to be losers. They loudly proclaim that they are more oppressed, more poor, more powerless, more worthless — and therefore more deserving of charity, more deserving of consideration, more deserving of handouts — more deserving and “more equal” than others.

This attitude of being helpless innocent victims of external forces simultaneously absolves them of any responsibility for their sorry predicament and excuses them from exerting any effort in solving their own problems. They themselves block their way out of trap of their own making.

It seems to me that success and ability to assume responsibility are causally related, and the direction of causality is from being responsible to being successful. I should hasten to add that by “successful” I do not mean that one is rich, although being materially comfortably off is a necessary — but not the only — component of being successful. One does not have to be a millionaire to be successful. Success, as I see it, is that state of being where one is not in conflict with oneself, with others, and with nature — in that order. It is quite feasible to be only modestly materially well off and yet be successful in the sense defined above; conversely, one can be fabulously wealthy and still be miserable due to conflicts, internal or external.

To be a victim, one has to be party to a conflict. The relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor is not one of amicable friendship. If one is determined to be a victim, one has to be engaged in conflict — and manufacture a conflict if there isn’t one. Absent conflict, there would not be a victim.

The world is not, and never has been, a place of unfettered peace and tranquility. There have been and there will continue to be conflict. The modern world is unique in the sense that it has given rise to conditions that conflicts are manufactured for the sole purpose of manufacturing victims. Being a victim is good business in some parts of the world and thus comes into being the industry that manufactures victims and victim-hood by the truckloads.

The manufacturing victim-hood industry is large and flourishing. It has a superbly efficient supply chain, stretching from the highest political peaks to the lowliest man on the journalism totem pole. The prime minister Dr Singh has figured out that not only is he a powerless victim, but he is also the protector of hundreds of millions of other victims. The top journalists generally don’t claim to be victims themselves (unless they get caught with their pants down, in which case they squeal like stuck pigs) but do declare loudly whole sections of the population to be victims. These people make an enviably decent living from the culture of manufactured victim-hood.

Just a couple of days ago I was reminded of how lucrative this victim-hood industry is. I was asked on twitter to comment on a talk by P. Sainath. The video is on YouTube. I watched it — the whole hour and fifteen excruciating minutes of it. I watched it because I am like that only — a victim of the demands that people make on my time. But since I have watched it, I will comment on it tomorrow.

Sorry but I will have to call it quits for now. Don’t blame me. I am not at fault. I am just a victim of the tyranny of time.

One recent rainy morning, I stopped at the grocery store after walking my dogs in the park.

As I strode into the store I realized that my wet shoes were making farting noises with every step. I tried walking more slowly, but that just resulted in slower, deeper farts.

So I paused for a moment, too mortified to move. Then like any geek of good conscience, I asked myself, WWJCD?

"What would John Cleese do?"

Suddenly the moment was transformed from one of extreme embarrassment to one of merriment. I put on my best Cleese straight-man face and continued walking, all the while pretending I had no idea the flatulent feet were attached to me.

If an unexpectedly boisterous blast burst from my soggy sneakers, I'd look around as though someone else was to blame and I was offended by their presence.

When the shopping was done I picked up the pace, resulting in dozens of quick squeaky blats following me as I left the store.

I have no idea what anyone else's reaction was, but I certainly had a good time.

So if you ever find yourself in an awkward situation, don't worry about it. Just ask yourself, WWJCD?Everything will be fine after that.

While you're here I hope you'll check out Glassboard, an app designed for private sharing. I write the Android version of Glassboard.

Thanda lege jaabe. Translation: You will catch a cold. Bengalis love Nature. After all, about 36.4% of their rhymeless poems, scribbled on the back of cigarette cartons and paper napkins, are about its assorted glories. (The rest are about Prem or love). But Nature, the heartless seductress, remains cold to them. Literally. Wise men have not been able to find out what exactly it is about the Bengali genetic structure that makes them as susceptible to the common cold as Raina is to the short ball. Whatever be the reason, Bengalis are mortally afraid of catching the chill. And for good reason. Which is why when the mercury dips oh-so-slightly, you will find them wandering about in gear that would look excessive at the North Pole—brown monkey-caps, grey sweaters (typically called “pullovers”) yards of mufflers and woolen socks. The Bengali might keep the windows of his mind open (like the legendary Sidhu-jyatha of Feluda lore) but, come spring, will definitely keep the windows of his room closed. Because the first breeze of spring, as his grandmother used to tell them, is deadly (praanghati).

Season change hocche. Translation: It is because of season change. Ask a Bengali why his nose is running or why he is substance-abusing on Crocins. The answer will most likely be “Season change.” No one questions the logic by which seasons change every day of the year, or how one perceives the changing of season in a place like Kolkata, or for that matter, how exactly does any change of season bring about different maladies. No one asks. Because they themselves are too busy being sick. From season change.

Moshaari tangano hoyeche? Translation: Have you deployed the mosquito net? Bengalis may not believe in God. But they sure do believe in the magical powers of the mosquito net, the closest they can come to possessing Harry’s Invisibility Cloak. If a nuclear device is ever dropped on Kolkata or a meteor decides to hurtle towards us (unlikely an event that is, since cosmic bodies, following the example of industries, avoid this part of the world), Bengalis will, without breaking a sweat, go into their mosquito nets, convinced that the bomb or meteor will bounce off like a stubborn mosquito. Now if it could only have protected us against season change…

Bokachoda..Translation: Moronic Fornicator.If there is one Bengali word a non-Bengali knows, it is this. The iconic swear-word is the Bong F-word. Depending on the context and the way in which you say it, it can convey anger, wonderment, sadness, disappointment, arousal, excitement or joy. As an added advantage, you can take out the “Boka” and attach different pre-fixes (“pagla” [mad], “chagol” [goat], “chomchom” [a sweet]) behind the “Choda” and each combination becomes a lethal swear-word, a perfect example of code reuse. So great has been the influence of this word that one of the first websites in India to be banned (the owner was also arrested) was bokachoda.com (around 1999) for its anti-CPM and sometimes anti-Bengali vitriol.

Horlicks kheyecho? Translation: Did you drink your Horlicks? That Horlicks is the secret behind the sturdy Bengali constitution is well known. What gets less attention is its contribution to the copyrighted Bengali male seduction technique. While many think that the awesomeness of the Bengali man’s kiss comes from practice acquired through a lifetime of slurping hot tea from a saucer, the truth is slightly different. It is Horlicks. As Prasenjit, the doyen of Bengali movies, has said.

Two actors, who don’t know each other and have to do a liplock that can stretch to 11-12 minutes. So between the takes I would go to her and say, “Have one biscuit or some Horlicks”

Yes. Horlicks and a thin arrowroot biscuit. Their mixture of carefully balanced nutrients provides stamina for lip-lock-outs . Furthermore, sharing a cup of Horlicks and biscuits, like oysters and wine, sets the mood for intimacy. And accept it, there is nothing a woman likes more than the intoxicating mixture of undissolved Horlicks clumps and Marie biscuit fragments off the lips of one’s paramour. (For further proof of the impact of Horlicks on the Bengali pysche, please see this [clip in Bengali])

Oh ma/ Baba re Translation: Oh mother/Daddyy. Nyakamo. The eyelid fluttering, back-arching, “I am a woman but yet a girl” faux-femininity that Kolkata Bengali females are famous for. And nothing says “nyaka” more than the “Oh ma/Baba re” at the beginning of every third sentence, almost as if every moment of existence is too much of a burden for these lovely ladies. Broken nail. Bad hair-day. Domestic help late for work. Terrorists massacre thirty. For everything the response is canned. “Oh ma/Baba re”.

Sob USA-te export howe jacche. Translation: Everything is getting exported to USA. In the Bengali dictionary of causology, the imperialists/USA were usually held responsible for everything bad, from rising prices to Mohun Bagan losing to Salgaoncar. (Now of course the imperialists have been replaced by Maoist/CPM, as per dictat of our great and glorious leader.) The black hand of unbridled capitalism was seen everywhere, particularly in the rising prices of essential commodities like hilsa fish, shrimp and mangoes. According to Bengalis, prices would have remained at the 50s level (1850s) had it not been for greedy “bourgeois” merchants exporting all these essentials to the US. Pretty logical I felt. Till I came over to the US where I find fish from Costa Rica and mangoes from Mexico, leading me to wonder, “Where do all those exports vanish?”

Dada ki party koren? Translation: Do you party sir? In other parts of the world, the word “partying” brings up images of beer boots, wet Tshirt contests, sandwich dances and overall debauchery. In Bengal, partying means sitting on dusty wooden chairs below large pictures of Marx and Lenin and discussing the fate of the Sandanistas and setting the question papers for the Board exams. In the 80s and the 90s, the “Party” meant the Communist Party of India Marxist and whether you were “in” or “out” of it determined whether you were “in” or “out” of the pyramid scheme of privilege that the “Party” was. Now of course the value of the “Party” variable has changed. Nothing much else.

They’re serious, fierce-looking birds; except when they’re not.

These two were hanging out next to our cabin, so I settled down with the big lens on the camera, hoping to get a dramatic shot of one or both taking wing. One somehow snuck off while I wasn’t looking, and then the other decided it needed to clean up. This went on for a remarkably long time.

I can report that the process works great; that was a fine-looking eagle when it finally flew away. I missed that shot too.

"Degree" Hungry Country

India, unfortunately has become a country high on “symbolism” and “tokenism”. And this is generally known as “Getting the Stamp”. Therefore, there is a clamour to get in to the IITs. Since there were only 4 to begin with, and more couldn’t be created, the Government came to the help of the hapless, stamp-starved parents of kids. They arbitrarily ‘labeled’ many more who weren’t. Simply one day a college was called an IIT. To heck with the fact that IIT meant a certain quality of education and output.

This clamour for “stamps” has mushroomed thousands of Engineering colleges, which – it is said – the very mention of them have given sleepless nights to Barack Obama and his education groups. But are the thousands of “Engineers” coming out of these .. well.. “Stamp colleges” really Engineers? That is debatable. In fact in most cases not so.

Such is the ignominy of the graduates of such colleges that, in order to remain useful for job market, they go take computer programming classes at NIITs – local vocational institutes. The following claim shows the damning picture of India’s “Stamp Crazy” Education system.

Muddying the picture is that on the surface, India appears to have met the demand for more educated workers with a quantum leap in graduates. Engineering colleges in India now have seats for 1.5 million students, nearly four times the 390,000 available in 2000, according to the National Association of Software and Services Companies, a trade group.

But 75% of technical graduates and more than 85% of general graduates are unemployable by India’s high-growth global industries, including information technology and call centers, according to results from assessment tests administered by the group. (emphasis added)

The real import of these figures is that – we might as well have not opened these so-called Engineering colleges. Yes, the 75% of them!! If the NASSC’s figures are to be looked in light of the claim later, only 375k out of 1.5 million graduates are employable. Astounding 1.125 million students are paying a lot and studying hard to become unemployable! If that is not sick and unfortunate, what is?

Pratham survey results

The mess is not just confined to the higher education, even at the school level, the claims of literacy really mean nothing. See these results from a Pratham survey for example:

Another survey, conducted annually by Pratham, a nongovernmental organization that aims to improve education for the poor, looked at grade-school performance at 13,000 schools in rural areas in India, where more than 70% of the population resides. It found that about half fifth graders can’t read at a second-grade level in India.

If 50% of the school kids in rural areas are not even ready to read at 3 grade levels below their current levels, then where are they going? The gap will only increase as they go on.

Education Mess a Mirror of Society?

Make no mistake, the entire mess is symptomatic of the mess in the current society itself. The corruption of individuals at such deep levels that it is not even realized.

The worst thing that has happened is that somehow the “2k Issues” in the computer world, catapulted India’s then starved computer educated populace – well educated and world class, but without jobs – to world’s center stage. India became a brand. Brown man or woman was considered “God’s Gift” to Information Technology. In many cases, it was so. But like all generalizations, it was an exaggeration. And remains.

Once the stereotype was established and businesses moved their back offices and technology work “lock, stock and barrell” to India, it was considered a sign of lunacy to even argue against shifting work to India. In fact, today, even at the higher and senior level executives are afraid – yes, afraid – to even say that their Indian operations are not really working for them. They have to “make it work” – as it saves money for the shareholder, and legends say that it works!

Such easy success sponsored by world’s pussilanimity is breeding over-confidence now surely in the region of Superiority complex backed by little concrete. There is a strange sense of entitlement. Without the necessary effort or even scruples. Look at this case of cheating in an engineering college:

Mr. Singh and several other engineering graduates said they learned quickly that they needn’t bother to go to some classes. “The faculty take it very casually, and the students take it very casually, like they’ve all agreed not to be bothered too much,” Mr. Singh says. He says he routinely missed a couple of days of classes a week, and it took just three or four days of cramming from the textbook at the end of the semester to pass the exams.

Others said cheating, often in collaboration with test graders, is rampant. Deepak Sharma, 26, failed several exams when he was enrolled at a top engineering college outside of Delhi, until he finally figured out the trick: Writing his mobile number on the exam paper.

That’s what he did for a theory-of-computation exam, and shortly after, he says the examiner called him and offered to pass him and his friends if they paid 10,000 rupees each, about $250. He and four friends pulled together the money, and they all passed the test.

“I feel almost 99% certain that if I didn’t pay the money, I would have failed the exam again,” says Mr. Sharma.

You can bet that the case of Deepak Sharma is not a unique one. It is actually reflective of the unscrupulous system that we now find rampant in India at every level – from schools to colleges to even the highest echelons of the Government!

I was talking to a research visiting Professor from Chandigarh’s Punjab University today and she said something interesting. She said with a laugh that in Punjab “we usually have the Education Minister always an illiterate person. The Education Minister is the ONLY one who gets his salary not by signing but by putting his thumb impression!”. It may not always be a fact. But it is true. It is true from the systemic and knowledge stand point.

How to change this?

Some companies which are directly affected by this lack of properly educated masses are making investments. Like WIPRO has started a program – called Mission 10X – to train the teachers in using the correct pedagogy techniques in teaching the engineering students.

“Before, I didn’t take the students into consideration,” says Vishal Nitnaware, a senior lecturer in mechanical engineering at SVPM College of Engineering in rural Maharashtra state. Now, he says, he tries to engage them, so they’re less nervous to speak up and participate in discussions.

Instead of either standing with his back to the students and writing on the board or facing them but only to lecture – afraid of engaging – these teachers have just made one change – Engage the Students! That has brought a huge change to the level of how the students are responding to their classes.

Yogesh Nerkar, principal of PVG College of Engineering and Technology in Pune says attendance in his classes soared when he applied the techniques he learned in the workshops after participating in one in 2008. Nearly 90% of his students attended his classes last year, he says, a big increase from the 40% who used to show up under duress before he participated in the workshop. He says he’s put projectors in all classes so professors can use audiovisuals to explain diagrams instead of spending a big part of their time drawing on the blackboard.

“Before, I was just presenting my views in class. Students were not taking interest, but because we made attendance compulsory, some students would come,” he said in an interview in February.

More and more companies and private effort will need to be expended on the education system, if we have to improve the future of India.

If the future generations, brought up a sense of entitlement where they think they “own the future of the world” – have to come even close to their dreams, they will have to work very hard.

More importantly, we will have to work harder!

Mirrored from jwz.org.

We have finally begun this project that I had written about a year ago:

Aquestes darreres setmanes, mesos fins i tot, han estat força intenses. Amb projectes que han duit moltes hores i que al final han sortit.

Rasec de Guillermo i companyia va representar posar en marxa una aplicació que va duu més de tres mesos de feina, però amb uns resultats inicials més que encoratjadors.

Pel nostre client de referència en el món turístic Fiesta Hotel Group hem posat en marxa tres noves webs en poc temps:

• http://www.ushuaiabeachhotel.com/. Unes fotografies realment precioses que fan ganes d'anar-hi.

• Sa Talaia Boutique Villa. En la mateixa línia que l'anterior i amb la idea de donar aquesta sensació de proximitat i unió entre els dos conceptes d'hotel.

• Hotel Mallorca Rocks Com concepte d'hotel-concert, que tans bona acollida ha tingut dins Palma com a alternativa al sol i platja tradicional.

Tot això amb Python i Django com podreu suposar. Pel tipus de feina en que ens anam especialitzant cada projecte és un poc diferent. Al nostre voltant hi ha empreses que se dediquen a "fer planes web" que duen molts anys i quan veus el que han fet te n'adones que han anat repetint el mateix patró, el mateix disseny una i una altra vegada. És una altra manera de fer feina, a mi el que m'agrada és la varietat, que cada projecte representi quelcom nou.

I com que després de fer tanta feina ens fa ganes divertir-nos, surten idees com l'ensaimeitor una aplicació que parteix d'una llibreria que vaig fer per us intern i que mig en broma mig seriosament hem posat a la web per si serveix a algú més. Es tracta de generar informació per omplir i testejar aplicacions web.

I com no, també he de parlar d'un altra projecte que ens fa il·lusió per la novetat que representa per nosaltres i per la gent que hi ha implicada. És el projecte Spokenpic que fem com a "joint-venture" amb la gent de Menéame. Està resultant un projecte força divertit, que fem gairebé al 100% com a projecte fora d'hores habituals. I el que més en @gallir, que té uns horaris de feina molt desbaratats, programant a les 3 i a les 4 de la matinada.

Fa poc Spokenpic va fer-se públic. El "secret" ja no se podia mantenir per més temps, així que ara anam fent canvis i millores. Trob que per la gent que programau i llegiu aquest blog segurament també us serà interessant seguir-ne l'evolució del projecte, com a poc a poc es van afegint funcionalitats a partir de l'estructura bàsica.

Com a aventura que és Spokenpic no sabem on arribarà, però el que és ben cert és que ens ho estam passant d'allò més bé amb el projecte. Fer feina amb gent que es tant o més friki que nosaltres ens diverteix molt. El projecte és un repte molt interessant, ja que comporta la coordinació de dos equips de programació, amb dos llenguatges de programació diferents. On tothom tenim altres feines i la coordinació és fa al 90% amb mails i el gestor de projectes. Amb els horaris de Ricardo és com si féssim feina a franges horàries separades! :)

Encara hi ha moltes coses que resoldre, moltes característiques que ens agradaria posar-ho, però ara per ara el més important és veure què opinen els nostres primers pre-alfa-testers. A poc a poc anirem ampliant els cercles de testejadors. Trobam que pot ser una eina molt interessant per certs sectors de gent i certes ocasions, però qui ha de validar si la idea és bona o no, la idea és mostrar el que hi ha fet i validar la idea, si funciona fantàstic, si no té bona acollida, doncs mira, ens haurem divertit molt de totes maneres. En Ricardo ho conta molt bé a spokenpic fotos relatadas.

I això és tot, projectes i més projectes. Estam entretinguts darrerament i això és el que més m'agrada.

Automatic translations of this post by Apertium

• #IWishMyGaadiCould could repair its dents & scratches on its own #
• World class programmers? http://t.co/ESwISnsZ #
• "XYZ likes his own photo" sometimes Facebook status messages sound a bit satiric #

(Photo: Tsutomu Takasu)

The dangerous thing about gambling is that you happen to win sometimes, just by chance.  The gambler is quick to take credit for successes, but can always find some external factor to blame for losses.

Case in point: my Kentucky Derby picks.  I picked three horses out of twenty starters: one to win, one to place, and one to show.  The horse I picked to win had some terrible luck, hurting his ankle and eventually finishing 19th.

The horse I picked for second, I’ll Have Another, ended up winning the race.  Bodemeister, my third-place pick, finished second.   A two dollar exacta-box on my top three horses would have cost $12 and would have returned $306.

I also picked a horse to finish last, Daddy Long Legs, and he indeed finished dead last.

So, like the gambler I am, I take credit for the good outcomes, and write off my horse finishing 19th as merely bad luck.

And, of course, that means I will push my luck on the Preakness, which goes off today.

I wish I had more exciting picks, but this time my algorithm likes the two favorites, Bodemeister and I’ll Have Another.  For third, I’d go with Optimizer.

Explore these TEDTalks that discuss income inequality — what causes it, the brutal effects, and how we might fight it.

Start with this talk from Richard Wilkinson, whose 2009 book The Spirit Level gathers decades of research to draw this conclusion: Societies with more income inequality suffer — in utterly predictable ways — more than societies that are more equal.

(And read the TED Blog’s in-depth Q&A with Wilkinson, in which he talks about the moment he realized economic inequality was a measureable problem.)

Next, watch Van Jones’ powerful talk on a specific outcome of economic injustice: If you’re poor, your neighborhood gets trashed.

For a followup, watch Majora Carter’s classic TEDTalk “Greening the Ghetto” — which shows the effects of income inequality on her home in the South Bronx, and offers triple-bottom-line solutions for raising incomes and reducing environmental damage.

And do not miss Bryan Stevenson’s TEDTalk about economic injustice and its consequences — with a bold call for everyone to look honestly at the problem: “We have a system of justice in [the US] that treats you much better if you’re rich and guilty than if you’re poor and innocent.”

Find more talks on inequality >>

From the TEDx Tumblr, this inspiring story:

TEDxMogadishu — the first TEDx event in Somalia — will happen tomorrow, May 17, and livestreamed around the world.

Update: Read press reports from TEDxMogadishu >>

On May 17, between 50 and 100 people from diverse backgrounds will attend the event to listen to Somalis discuss the rebirth of Mogadishu. The event will be livestreamed for Somalis who can’t attend (e.g., the diaspora) and people who are interested to learn about the positive changes happening in Mogadishu.

The goal of the organizing team is to build a foundation for more events in the future, and to hopefully give Mogadishu a steady and fresh platform for spreading ideas. We spoke to team member Sebastian Lindstrom about the event:

Why Mogadishu — what led you to organize a TEDx here?

We had an opportunity to go to Mogadishu to film the opening of First Somali Bank, and while planning this trip, we brainstormed with Somalis living in the city about how to further share the positive stories taking place. TEDx has become a worldwide movement for sharing ideas and innovations taking place at the local level, and it seemed like a great fit. Mogadishu is changing, and while some in the media have picked up on it, the general perception of Mogadishu remains negative. We feel it’s important to share what’s really happening and we want to showcase positive stories for those who care about this dynamic city.

Who are the locals you’re working with?

We are working with Liban Egal, the founder of First Somali Bank, and his team in Mogadishu. They have linked the organizing team to a wide variety of Somalis — those who have returned to Somalia over the past few years and those who have lived through the conflict — who are supporting this initiative in various ways. We are crowdsourcing from the Somali and Somali diaspora’s Twittersphere to track down resources and awareness. Basically, it’s all very much a team effort on a worldwide Somali basis.

How did you choose the theme of your event — does it relate directly to the political situation, or is there a broader meaning?

The theme focuses on positive changes happening in Mogadishu, irrespective of the political situation. Many Somalis think Mogadishu has recently reached a turning point now that there is no active fighting inside the city for the first time in decades. There are thousands of Somalis returning home to open businesses, buildings sprouting up and being reconstructed, and there is a real sense of rebirth in a marginalized, misrepresented community that feels that its time has come. We realized this was the right moment to hold the event. So on the 17th a group of Somalis from different walks of life will share their stories of how Mogadishu is changing and their ideas for the future — this is TEDxMogadishu.

What are some of the challenges you knew you would face?

Safety concerns. Even though Mogadishu is changing, there remain significant security concerns that we cannot disregard. We are taking ample precautions so that adequate security will be in place. We are comforted by the fact that we’re holding an apolitical event with no agenda other than providing a platform for Somalis to communicate positive changes happening in this city to the world.

The second biggest challenge was timing and communication. Remote organization isn’t possible, so much was done on the ground over the past week. However, this city tends to operate quite last minute, so it hasn’t been a problem to find great speakers and attendees.

What’s a challenge that was completely unexpected?

Isolation anxiety. Because of security reasons, you cannot, as a foreigner, openly walk the streets of Mogadishu. So, you end up spending a lot of time in one place, which can result in a case of island fever.

What did you expect to be challenging, and wasn’t at all?

We thought that finding a venue was going to be a huge problem, but it worked out superbly.

What’s one thing about Mogadishu and Somalia that you wish everyone knew?

Despite its perception, Mogadishu is a beautiful city filled with hard working and extremely entrepreneurial Somalis. Both Somalis at home, and those in the diaspora, are optimistic that a turning point has been reached after 21 years of conflict.

Tell me about your speakers!

Speakers will include a wide range of Somalis and one foreigner. Some have recently returned to Mogadishu and others have lived through the conflict. They include: a chef and restauranteur, a real estate developer, the founder of a university, the founder of the First Somali bank, a healthcare specialist, someone who works with rape victims and former child soldiers, a Somali journalist, a camel milk mobilizer and more.

And tell me one speaker’s story …

Elle Elman will give a talk about her work with rape and sexual assault victims and the rehabilitation of child soldiers. Her father started the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre and was an ardent peace activist in the 1990s, who coined the slogan “Put down the gun, pick up a pen.” He was killed in 1996 for trying to promote peace in Somalia. Elle left for Canada and three years ago came back to support her mother’s work with that same organization; more on the organization and her mother can be found here and here.

She is of the new generation in Somalia and has returned to her country during these difficult times.

Read these stories about her father, which are good to mention, since he was one of the initial major peace advocates; and people in Mogadishu know his name well.

Check out the website for the event: www.TEDxMogadishu.com

Follow on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TEDxMogadishu

Follow on Twitter: @TEDxMogadishu

Email for more information: info@TEDxMogadishu.com

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1. Last year there was a big brouhaha over the so called censoring of A K Ramanujan’s text on Ramayana. Deepak Sharma, the moderator of RISA, wrote an article in the Huffington Post titled Censoring Ramanujan’s Essay On Ramayana: Intolerant Hindus And Confusing Texts.  As the politics behind history is as interesting as history itself, here is an article by Koenraad Elst on the issue

“Where Ramanujan got it wrong, driven by his ideological agendas, is to to place all the diverse renderings of Ramayana at par with the Valmiki Ramayana. Let us get one thing VERY CLEAR – All these different versions of Ramayana (Dasharatha Jataka included) have the Ramayana of Valmiki as their basis and draw their storyline to it. It is another matter that they adapt it to their own purposes. Even Ashvaghosha, the author of Buddhacharita, salutes Valmiki as the Adikavi. The Shakya lineage was derided for having descended from a brother sister union. The Buddhists therefore created the Jataka in which Rama and Sita married, and linked the Shakyas with the Ikshavakus. So, their agenda was obvious. To claim, despite this obvious explanation, that in the ‘most ancient version of the Ramayana, Rama and Sita are siblings’ is to distort stuff with the deliberate intent of deriding Hindu beliefs.

2. A popular theory which explains the spread of Indo-European language around the world is called the Kurgan hypothesis.
   Jesus Sanchis, based on new work by Francisco Villar, suggests something radical.

Of course, some may think: “Ok, there were IE language in Europe at that early age, but then there was another wave of IE dispersal at the bronze age which brought the IE languages as we know them today and historically”. The authors admit this possibility, but also say that it is quite unlikely. As they say, and as I have insisted in this blog many times, there is no evidence of any sort of relevant population movement in the Bronze Age that could even remotely support this theory, usually known as the Kurgan theory.

3. How did ancient Indians trade? Did they simply barter or did they have any sort of currency? An excellent blog called Indian Coins looks at this

What gave an impetus to the development of a long lasting metal-based monetary system was the eventual arrival of gold, followed by silver and other metals. Gold was abundant in several south Indian rivers and people were able to glean gold nuggets from them. They were also able to extract coarse gold dust from sand with a reasonable effort. These gold nuggets and gold dust became an important medium of currency within India by 1000. Gold dust was placed in impervious bags and these bags were used for transaction. There are numerous references in ancient Indian literature to these bags of gold. This in turn attracted Indians to gold and silver which foreign merchants offered to purchase Indian products.

4. Sriram writes about the trinity of bhajana sampradaya in Tanjore region

The Tanjore region became the bhajana tradition’s stronghold with the arrival of the bhajana sampradAya trinity, namely Sadguru Swamin, Bhodendral and Sridhara Venkatesa Ayyaval. The trio existed between 1684 and 1817 AD. Ayyaval who was the senior most is considered the father of the Bhajan tradition in South India. Born in Tiruvisanallur, Tanjore District, Ayyaval was a contemporary of King Shahaji I (ruled 1684-1712). He firmly believed in nAma siddhAnta, the principle of chanting God’s name and composed several simple songs for congregational singing.

5. In 1873, Edward Lear arrived in India and spent time painting and sketching. Fëanor writes
   

   Lear’s Nonsense verses were immensely popular in India. Of course, this is not to say the local population knew any of them. Rather, the colonial kids – living in their bubbles – knew them and even studied them at school. His interaction with Indians appears to have been somewhat limited. He learned a few Hindi and Tamil words. He could ask the way (‘Rusta ke hai?’) and he was happy to eat ‘Bhat’ and curry, and in Madras, could say ‘Please endewennum?’ He expressed regret that he hadn’t bothered to learn the ‘Lingo’ before arriving in India.

6. During WW1, a large number of Indian soldiers fought in Mesopotamia. Seyahatname visited the Haydarpaşa English cemetery in Turkey and found some memorial stones.

Mesopotamia saw the largest influx of Indian soldiers. Over the course of the many campaigns, close to 675,000 Indian fighting troops as well as hundreds of thousands of auxiliary troops were involved in Mesopotamia. When General Townshend’s troops surrendered in April 1916, the POWs were marched all the way from Mesopotamia to POW camps in Turkey. Most of those who survived probably ended up at the POW camps in Afyonkarahissar (the name ‘black poppy castle’ always makes me chuckle). Apparently, there are still some memorial stones in that region of Anatolia, but most of the Indian POWs are remembered here in Istanbul.

7. Samanth Subramanian at NYTimes Blog has a post on independent India’s first corruption scandal involving the party that has been bringing us bigger and better corruption scandals for the past six decades.

After Mr. Chagla filed his report, Mr. Krishnamachari resigned on Feb. 18, 1958. When Mr. Nehru received the letter of resignation, he wrote back a note that was curiously dismissive of Mr. Chagla and that betrayed his deep fondness for Mr. Krishnamachari: “Despite the clear finding of the Commission so far as you are concerned, I am most convinced that your part in this matter was the smallest and that you did not even know what was done.” Mr. Mundhra, arrested at a suite at the Claridges Hotel in New Delhi, went to prison for 22 years.

That’s it for May. The next carnival will be up on June 15th or the weekend following it. If you have any links, please e-mail me at varnam.blog @gmail. (Thanks Sandeep, Feanor, as usual)

Years ago, in the Dark Ages of desktop software, security was an option. People used software that was insecure by default, but if they knew where to look they could turn on various options that made the software secure.

Microsoft Outlook used to be like that: by default it would allow viruses to be emailed to you, but you could configure it to be secure if you knew where the security options were.

Then people started getting all sorts of nasty viruses via email, and Microsoft wised up. They stopped treating security as opt-in and started making their software secure by default.

Fast forward to today and we're seeing a similar situation with privacy.

By default most social software isn't private - it's configured to share everything about you, not just with people you know but also with advertisers. You have to figure out where the privacy settings are - and what they mean - if you want the software to respect your privacy.

And as with the opt-in security settings of the past, today's opt-in privacy settings are leading to all sorts of problems. Every day we see headlines about privacy violations that could've been avoided if we used software that didn't treat privacy as an option.

Software developers need to look at privacy the same way we've learned to look at security: it's not an add-on or a feature that customers have to turn on, it's something built-in that shouldn't be turned off.

I write the Android version of Glassboard, an app designed for private conversations. Find out more at glassboard.com.

Earlier this week I wrote that privacy shouldn't be an option. Privacy - like security - should be expected, not something that users have to enable.

Need proof? Just read about Girls Around Me, an incredibly ill-conceived app that takes advantage of women who don't know they need to configure the privacy settings in the social software they use.

Software that isn't private by default assumes users know how to make it private, which is an unrealistic - and, in the case of "Girls Around Me," potentially dangerous - assumption.

I write the Android version of Glassboard, an app designed for private conversations. Find out more at glassboard.com.

...but they may know you're a dog person if you join my "Dog Pics" board, which I originally created so my friends and I could share photos and videos of our canine companions on Glassboard.

If you'd like to share with us, use the invitation code "dogpics" in the app to join the board. Just follow these steps if you're not sure how to do this:

Now, you may find it odd that an app that's all about private sharing enables anyone to join a board this way. So I'll clarify that you have to explicitly create an invitation code for one to exist for a board. An invitation code provides a simple way to get people into your board quickly without having to invite them - just share the code with the people you want on your board, and when everyone's in you can disable the code so it can't be used to join the board again.

Tatasteel fell below Rs. 400 on Friday, as it announced dismal results in 2012. With an EPS of just Rs. 4 for the last quarter of FY 2011-12, and a drop of 42% in full year EPS (Rs. 53.63) compared to the earlier year (Rs. 92.86), the share price doesn't look quite that cheap either.

For the last five years results have been zig zag:

While revenue has recovered after the financial crisis, EPS is just not working out. The Rs. 99 EPS last year was great due to a nice series of restructuring accounting points, which is basically funny money. But obviously that doesn't last. At current prices, the stock trades at a P/E of 8 which is pretty much fair value for a company that sells a commodity.

Oh and that's not counting the massive FCCB payment that is coming in 2014. They had rolled over earlier FCCBs in 2009, so there is an obligation of $1.09 billion coming up in November 2014, or the share price needs to be Rs. 605 or more. That's a 50% gain in the next two years that Tata Steel hopes will happen.

Five years ago, in April 2007,when Tata announced the Corus buyout structure, I wrote a post saying the company was "not worth it". The price then was Rs. 505. Since then there have been Rs. 80 worth dividends (of which the last Rs. 12 is only going to be paid in the months ahead)

Five years, and India's largest steel conglomerate, one that has been hailed internationally, has given NEGATIVE returns on the stock, even including dividends. Five years of nothingness, and I'll soon show that this is actually good - many of the other big guns have just killed themselves.