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Pappu Can’t Type, Saala!

November 1, 2008 – 2:51 pm

….tirkit taara ….tirkit taara…. let’s type! But Pappu can’t type, saala! Yes, Pappu can network on several social media websites, Pappu can play online MMORPG games, Pappu can forward several emails to his friends with a click, Pappu can chat live, Pappu can scan news from various online newspapers & magazines, Pappu can enjoy music & video online, Pappu can download files, Pappu can upload files too, Pappu can blog on his favourite blogging platforms, Pappu can scan images, print files to printer or flash drives, etc. etc…. Pappu is a master of his P.C. …but eh! Pappu can’t type! Yes, पप्पू टाइप नहीं (कर) सकता !

Unbelievable, but its true and applicable to many of us internet freaks! I dunno about you but I am the one who belong to the unfortunate group of these Pappus :( . I still don’t know how to type! Its really very Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | by the way | Comments (5)

Blogging or publishing online? Beware of Plagiarism & copyrights. But what’s that?

October 31, 2008 – 3:45 pm

Yes, I am often confused about the copyright issues when writing content for my blog. Exactly to what extent can someone’s content be used to develop our own content is very confusing. And the more I study & research on the issue, the more confused I get!

Even copyright laws have gone archaic in this digital age. But strangely enough, legal expertise is not easy to find on this issue. A couple of years back, I was in Dehradun (a state capital in India) and looked for an legal expert on IPR & copyright issues  at the local bar council. Strangely I wasn’t able to locate any and was advised by some counsellors to go to delhi for the same attributing it to be a complex issue. I discussed the questions at open forums online and got all sorts of confusing answers. After giving their advice, everyone will add that you should confirm it with some attorney with expertize in this domain. PubLaw has a good coverage on it with this fine print, I have also tried to understand Creative Commons License many times. But some how nothing gets into my mind.

Around a couple of months back I met Rahi who used to take help for expanding his ideas on his blog from newspapers’ & magazines’ articles. He was advised by someone to restrain from it and he agreed to it. But I find nothing wrong when he still continues the same way. Another friend Archet writes more than a dozen blogs based on all stolen content. But as Dilbert puts it, intangibles can’t be stolen! :)

One of my friends Ashok got scared of these practices of freely using anyone’s personal flickr photographs and now he restrain himself from using these sites for creating personal albums. The assumption that whatever available on the Internet is in public domain and hence free for use by everyone is hurting sentiments of many and changing their online behaviour. Today I know many people who dare not to share their personal or family photographs through online webspaces. They fear their possible illicit usage.

Last month I met Priyanka of TwilightFairy who has fought with the country’s biggest media conglomerate for stealing a Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Business Mangement, Information update, by the way | Comments (5)

Who is Poor? Why are we Poor?? And how can we get Rich???

October 15, 2008 – 7:03 am

Today is the blogosphere’s Poverty Eradication Day. The Century Times analyzes about the poor, the poverty, the rich, the chasm in between & the alternatives available to completely eradicate the poverty in Indian context. Lets start with exploring …

Who really is Poor?

No, not the beggars, for their gross earnings are above the national per capita income. (One report reveals the total earnings of all the beggars in Mumbai alone to an astonishing Rupees 180 crore i.e. 1,800 millions! Take a guess for Chennai figures by visiting here, for Hyderabad here, for Kolkata click here, for Delhi click here or this one.).

No, it can’t be the slum-dwellers of metropolis …as the valuation of most slum units are more than a well-built average rural home!

Nor it can be the person lying on a footpath …for these people have access to exotic & invaluable but legally banned drugs for their indulgence, which even a middle-class household can not afford, if it ever wished for the same!

And about daily wage-earners …I have observed most of them including masons, plumbers, rickshaw-pullers, auto-drivers, restaurant waiters, etc. making many folds higher income than a qualified junior level executive. Moreover, their status is that of a businessman as against the one slogging for his pay through out the month!

So who is actually POOR in the real sense??? Well, hold your breathe, for I might sound a bit insulting when Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Earnings & Savings tips, by the way | Comments (2)

Update on “Love this Pet …A Tiger!”

October 14, 2008 – 11:06 am

justification-by-buytigers.JPGUPDATE : A Justification by the owner

On the feedback to “Love this Pet …A Tiger!“, Aldo  Tripiciano, the owner & webmaster of buytigers.com has come up with certain clarifications on his website in defense of his act. Now he says that he was just fooling around with this fake story of selling tigers online! And in response to it, he had received several hundred emails (over 300 orders for tigers till date), but he hasn’t replied to any one of them. And he further adds that he is not a trickster to lure people to part with their hard earned money. But he accepts that he was aware that the site may have hurt someone’s sensibilities. And yes, it has Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Nature & Environment | Comments (2)

Cosmetics like Antiperspirants breed Breast Cancer

October 1, 2008 – 10:50 am

pfo_trans1.png Well, its October again. And we are going pink this year too to spread the cause of breast cancer.  I don’t know why people & institutions in India do not raise any voice or awareness campaigns against the rising breast cancer. This is the first & only website from India registered at Pink For October till today to spread the awareness as October is earmarked as Breast Cancer Awareness Month! However breast cancer is very common in India. (See this post)

Studies indicate that Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Announcements, by the way | Comments (0)

Peeping into the unknown

September 17, 2008 – 12:23 pm

Since times immemorial, humanity has always been curious to know the unknown. It has always endeavoured to undertake the seemingly impossible and invincibly challenging tasks merely to satiate its ever-curious desire to uncover the secrets of its existence, universe, super-natural powers and the likes. …And has been successful in finding at least a few answers to some of the eternal questions previously thought unanswerable!

But a mere thought of possibilities of existence of life at some other planet gives butterflies

Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Nature & Environment, by the way | Comments (2)

Hindi Divas vs. National Language : A question mark to Democratic Governance

September 14, 2008 – 11:17 am

For last 59 years, we are celebrating Hindi Day on 14th September - A good idea to publicize our national language across the country. A national language means Ruling Language in which the Government of that country conducts it day to day business (Raj Bhasha as its called in Hindi).

But many times this question crops up into my mind :

Do we really need a National Language?

Hindi is of course our country’s widespread language today and deserve to be called a National Language. It descended from Sanskrit and is easy to learn. But at times it seems to me that its not very techno-friendly and words are quite difficult to pronounce and grasp. In contrast, our South Indian languages like Tamil are very musical and easy to speak (I mean we need to exert less force and thrust lesser air out of our throats while speaking these languages).

Secondly, if there should be a national language, why there should not be a language which could be accorded an International Language status? In fact, history had done the humankind a favour by the spread of British colonial culture resulting in the widespread use of English in most parts of the world. Today its considered as the language of business.

Today, we are supposed to learn at least three languages : first our mother tongue (some regional language or dialect), then our national language Hindi and then English to readily steer through our life. Isn’t much of the human resources being wasted in this? How many human hours are consumed in learning three languages when, if given a choice for one, many would do away with one.

I recall my interaction with one friend, a couple of years back whom I met at some wedding ceremony in Mumbai. Unfortunately, Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | by the way | Comments (6)

Love this Pet …A Tiger!

September 12, 2008 – 12:55 pm

buytigers.gifWanna buy a new pet? How about a Tiger? Yeah, to pet a tiger could show your patriotism as well, as tiger is our national animal!

Everything and anything can happen in this strange strange world. Some years back, our then presiden Mr. Abdul Kalam was worried about the fact that one of the country’s foremost Wild Life sanctuary meant for tigers viz. Sariska Wild Life Sanctuary in Rajasthan, suddenly declared that its tiger population has gone to zero. Censure followed and confirmed the fears. Recently, one tiger and a tigress were transported there to breed back the tigers there, after all the media hype & criticism.

Forget all these media hype. If you are tired of those old pettable options of dogs & cats, you can opt for a bigger (and yeah, a really BIGGER) cat Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Nature & Environment | Comments (7)

Next dot com bust? …Internet crash!!!

July 21, 2008 – 9:15 am

Not just dot com bust but a total Internet crash might be in the offing! Thus says the Ministerial Background Report by none other than the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Decelopment (OECD), London. It predicts that Internet will crash by 2011!

Why will Internet crash ?

* OECD predicts an acute shortage of IP addresses by 2011

* Explosive growth in new Internet connections is leading to consumption of more & more IP addresses.

* 85 percentage of the possible IP addresses had been already allocated by early this year.

* Remainig 16 percentage of IP addresses are expected to be finished in Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | Information update | Comments (5)

Serious Humour, Tensed Smiles!

July 18, 2008 – 8:09 am

Worldover, Indians are infamous for not having a funny bone. This missing bone is perhaps making our day-to-day life …boneless! So why we are the way we are? There are multitude of factors contributing to this state of mind : stressful life, perennial short supply of time, over-load of work, trying to pace with fast striding society & economic disparity with immediate social circle, blah, blah. But do any of these worth leading a boneless life (…I mean life minus the funny bone)???

Contrary to the popular perception, humour too has to pay its price. And perhaps our society is too poor to afford it! At times, humour require us to be careless, carefree or even ignorant. And taking things lightly might ease out some ongoing tensions but we might behave irresponsibly, thus paying the price in form of the resultant losses.

Of late, we have started taking things too seriously however trivial or unimportant they might be. We have gone over-cautious, over-conscious, over-committed & too rigid in our philosophy, values & approach. There are protocols for smiling (or rather putting up plastic smiles), etiquettes attached with laughters, whispering at the lowest possible decibel limit for lol! and so on. All these leave no space for humour but paradoxically are equally humourous. :)

To find out more, I went on to observe the normal default emotions of Delhiites in their Keep Reading »

Ashutosh | by the way | Comments (10)

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