Mind of Mencia- 7/11

Mencia's amazing enactment of a Hindu 7-11 store owner - dissing all the races. Hilarious doesn't begin to describe it.

Smile

Congratulations!

MoonBeam - the DIY 100 MPG Car

http://mysite.verizon.net/vze6omtd/jorysquibb/index.html

All you ever wanted to know about building a 100 mpg car but were too afraid to ask!

Jory Squibb lays it all out here - a 1000 hours DIY project - $2500 in parts from used Honda scooters. Looking at how simple this is, I wonder why the automobile companies are not picking up on this trend.

"If we were to keep track of how we use our cars on a weekly basis, it might become clear that we are often using a large car when we could be using a very small car. Getting groceries, picking up kids, going to the doctor's--these are often errands which don't take us far from home, or require more than 40MPH. Perhaps we could substitute a tiny car, a sort of enclosed motorscooter for these situations--a microcar."

Specially in USA, there seems to be a craze for useless horsepower. Look at the median family sedans - the horsepower has gone up from about 125 in early 90s to 240 now. Yet, if you look at traffic patterns in major urban areas, the average speed on highways and city roads has been reducing every year due to congestion. Where do you get to use this horsepower - the speed limits have not changed - and fast acceleration is a sure way of attracting cops' attention.

Same thing has happened to motorcycles. While anywhere else in the world you will see the average street bikes in the 100 - 250 cc range, in USA they talk about 600 cc bikes as a starter bike - the desirable one being more in the 1000 cc plus range.

Tags: 100 mpg, gasoline, gas prices, petrol, oil, honda, motorcar, scooter, motorcycle, automobile, green car, environment, conservation

India doesn't need SEZs: Bhagwati- The Times of India

India doesn't need SEZs: Bhagwati- The Times of India:

Here's a great quote from the Columbia University economist - Jagdish Bhagwati on the potential economic growth of India and China in the near future:

"There are three things around which there needs to be consensus.

Development is a powerful cocktail made of three liqueurs. One is openness. Greater integration with the world can bring you benefits in trade and investment.

Two, economic freedom, which I don't like because it sounds ideological, like judicious use of markets—not a knee-jerk reaction against them but being pragmatic about it. Use markets more freely whatever your objectives.

The third is political democracy, what we call political freedom, which is a great value in itself,'he said.

'India had democracy, not the other two (openness and free markets). Now we have all three. Now we are poised for dramatic growth. China, unfortunately, has the first two but not democracy. And there it's leading to a lot of problems. It can go on to create massive social destruction. We have the ideal brew,'he adds. "

technorati tags: tom+friedman, bhagwati, columbia+university, india, china, economic, growth

Musical escapades of my brother - Ajay Kalra

My brother just completed Appalachian Music Fellowship Program - 2006 at the historic Berea College. Founded in 1855 as the first interracial and co-educational college in the South, Berea College promotes understanding and kinship among all people, service to communities in Appalachia and beyond, and sustainable living practices which set an example of new ways to conserve our limited natural resources.

Look up this page for his interpretative analysis of the repertoires and playing styles of the seventeen African American performers who have appeared at Berea’s Celebration of Traditional Music since its beginning in 1974.

technorati tags: ajay, kalra, ajay+kalra, austin, bluegrass, tennessee, appalachian

Microsoft - are you feeling lucky today?

Try this - it will blow your mind:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/

2. Type in "search"

3. Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"

Thanks to my friend Manoj for sharing this wonderful nugget - you c an see his original post at http://agarwalmk.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!780CD8FB86EF8F7C!448.trak

An image is worth a thousand words

This one is a great example of a picture telling the entire story. I was paying $1.30 per gallon back in 1999 when I first came to Bay Area. This year I paid as much as $3.30.

technorati tags: gasoline, gas, price, california, opec, failed+policy

A blast from the past - Tintin and Captain Haddock

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_exclamations_used_by_Captain_Haddock
Here's a great compilation of all the juicy exclamations used by Captain Haddock in the Tintin comic books. Once again, Wikipedia scores over conventional encyclopedias - show me an article like this in the Brittanica!

Tags: wikipedia, tintin, captain haddock, exclamations

The mathematics of Sudoku, a puzzle that boasts "No math required!"

http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/48550?&print=yes

A very interesting article on Sudoku strategies and the underlying math. It makes for some good, heavy reading over the Labor Day weekend.

"The instructions that accompany Sudoku often reassure the number-shy solver that "No mathematics is required." What this really means is that no arithmetic is required. You don't have to add up columns of figures; you don't even have to count. As a matter of fact, the symbols in the grid need not be numbers at all; letters or colors or fruits would do as well. In this sense it's true that solving the puzzle is not a test of skill in arithmetic. On the other hand, if we look into Sudoku a little more deeply, we may well find some mathematical ideas lurking in the background."

Here is another look at the math underlying Sudoku - an order-3 Sudoku grid (the most popular type with 3x3 blocks) has almost 4,000,000,000,000 unique solutions.

Tags: sudoku, math, mathematics, puzzle, recreation, leisure, labor day weekend

802,000 join nationwide disaster drills as U.S. military participates for first time

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/national/news/20060901p2a00m0na016000c.html

This is what real disaster preparedness looks like - and costs like! In USA we are used to doing everything on the cheap - then we end up with debacles like the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Even the response to 9/11 leaves a lot to be desired - the commission's report on that is only gathering dust with not much action having been taken on the recommendations.

Maybe California should take a lead and partner with Japan for disaster preparedness. After all, we do share the same disaster potential in form of magnitude 7 earthquakes in highly populated areas.

Office 2.0 conference

Office 2.0 has it's own conference

read more | digg story

LibriVox - Public Domain Audio Books

LibriVox

What a great idea - putting out audio readings of books that are now in public domain.

Amardeep Singh: Khushwant Singh's Journalism: The Illustrated Weekly of India

An interesting piece on Khushwant Singh - one of my favorite people - right from the time I was a school kid in Delhi. His"With Malice Towards One and All" column is what got me started on reading editorials as a young school kid.

Khushwant's secularism, his sense of humor, his ability to not be pompous - inspite of his tremendous stature in society and his fair take on history and contemporary events made him probably one of the most admired journalists in India of all times.

Here's a quote from Amandeep's column "I admire Khushwant Singh's secularism, which for me is always best represented by the Mario cartoon he used on his 'Editor's Page' in The Illustrated Weekly: a caricature of himself, sitting next to a pile of books, a bottle of scotch, and a girlie magazine. This is the basis for the familiar Khushwant Singh slogan, 'sex, scotch, and scholarship,' which is also the title of one of his later books of essays. Much has been made of the 'sex' and 'scotch,' both of which are somewhat ironic since testimony from people who've known him has confirmed that he's neither a womanizer nor a heavy drinker. 'Sex, scotch, and scholarship' isn't literally Khushwant Singh's lifestyle (nor does it accurately represent his attitude towards women); it's rather a slogan for his fiercely independent ethos. It's something India still has need of: a willingness to publicly be something other than 'respectable' and 'respectful,' to tell the truth rather than wrap the world in mysticism or one or another political ideology. "

Colbert's take on Wikipedia

Colbert's magic goes on and on - now he's expanding his domain from political to technology. His hilarious take on Wikipedia and the latest word he invented "Wikiality" is a light hearted look at the Wikipedia phenomenon.

Solve Sudoku (Without even thinking!)

Solve Sudoku (Without even thinking!)

For all those Sudoku maniacs out there - here is a method to the madness. All you need is a printed Sudoku puzzle and a pencil - yes, no high tech wizardry here! Try this and you may just get the bragging rights around your office water cooler for being the fastest Sudoku-ist.

technorati tags: sudoku, puzzle

The Ten Commandments of cell phone etiquette

The Ten Commandments of cell phone etiquette - Dan Briody, InfoWorld

1. Thou shalt not subject defenseless others to cell phone conversations.

2. Thou shalt not set thy ringer to play La Cucaracha every time thy phone rings.

3. Thou shalt turn thy cell phone off during public performances.

4. Thou shalt not wear more than two wireless devices on thy belt.

5. Thou shalt not dial while driving.

6. Thou shalt not wear thy earpiece when thou art not on thy phone.

7. Thou shalt not speak louder on thy cell phone than thou would on any other phone.

8. Thou shalt not grow too attached to thy cell phone.

9. Thou shalt not attempt to impress with thy cell phone.

10. Thou shalt not slam thy cell phone down on a restaurant table just in case it rings.

The Dilbert Blog: Burning Flags

The Dilbert Blog: Burning Flags

A beautiful article on the Flag Burning issue (or non-issue) was just published by Scott Admas on his Dilbert Blog. This one sentence says it all "The thing to remember about freedom is that it’s not given, it’s taken."

technorati tags: flag+burning, flag, burning, congress, politics, republicans, senate, democrats

President Kalam's Sukhoi flight

President Kalam's Sukhoi flight:


June 08, 2006

President A P J Abdul Kalam, supreme commander of the armed forces, in the Sukhoi-30 MKI, Indian Air Force's state-of-the-art supersonic fighter aircraft.

On Thursday, the President undertook a historic 40-minute sortie in the aircraft, taking off from Lohegaon airbase in Pune at 10.25 am.

Kalam is the first Indian President to fly in the all-weather, air-dominance supersonic fighter aircraft.

'After flying this sortie, I now realise that India is in safe hands, our borders are safe. We have such good pilots, and good defence personnel,' President Kalam said.

Photograph: Rajesh Karkera

Are you a Googlehead too?

There's a whole new species in the Valley - they're called the Googleheads. You know what the characteristics are :-) are you one too?

Polar Bears- are their days on earth numbered?

Beautiful picture of a Polar Bear - sadly their days are numbered unless there are some drastic breakthroughs in alternate energy sources over the next decade.

Tags: environment, ice age, global warming, al gore, polar bear, polar ice cap, arctic

Powered by Qumana