Category: news

Saggy pants Saga

Every once in a while, you read a news item which makes you laugh so hard that you fall off the chair.

An Alabama man appears to have deeply offended the fashion sensibilities of an Autauga County judge. LaMarcus D. Ramsey showed up in court Tuesday to enter a plea on a charge of receiving stolen property, but before the 20-year-old could say “undie alert,” he was carted off to the slammer for his saggy pants. Circuit Judge John Bush cited Ramsey for contempt of court for wearing his blue jeans too low and ordered him to spend three days in jail. The judge warned Ramsey that when he gets out, he’d better be wearing pants that fit — or at least put on a belt.

(via)

TheHindu and Twitter – Wow

The Hindu is a traditional news paper. So traditional that it will either give the exact facts (not too often) or report in convoluted third person versions (such as “Unnamed sources reported the incident to be common in the reported portions of the state.”). More recently, things have been shaking up. Print Ads and Online ads against the Times of India (the “Stay Ahead of the Times” campaign) and much more.

But today was a day of ‘shock’ for me. Quite literally, after I felt the light tremors in Bangalore.

Hindu reported that

People on Twitter said tremors were felt in Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and India. High-rise apartments and offices on Malaysia’s west coast shook for at least a minute.

Wow. Hindu mentioning people on twitter and mentioning it in a news article. Ofcourse, it added the Hindu touch soon after by saying

Said, an official at Indonesia’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency who goes by only one name, said a tsunami warning has been issued.

(link)

Facebook to buy Instagram

Facebook has concluded a deal to buy out Instagram for close to a billion dollars in cash and stock. That is a pretty big deal, considering Instagram is a fairly young company. There are some folks in the internet who are saying that Facebook is the new Google, and will swallow up any new good technology that crops up. And there are a few which say that the true reason is ‘fear’. I agree with the latter. I believe trends were beginning to show that, people were beginning to start sharing info about their lives and other things more over instagram photos than sharing updates on FB. I am sure that must have made FB jittery.

Apparently, as a first time ever, Facebook is going to let Instagram function the same way as it is, rather than integrating into FB. And that is one thing that I just do not believe. I have gone through 2 acquisitions, and seen a half a dozen in the EDA industry (where consolidation happens pretty commonly). This ‘show’ of ‘trust’ in letting the new company function as it is, does not last long. Let us see how long they remain independent. I am sure Instagram will get stuffed in the timeline somewhere, very soon.

Tree Hugger – Jadav “Molai” Payeng

This is just amazing. Read this exerpt:

A little over 30 years ago, a teenager named Jadav “Molai” Payeng began burying seeds along a barren sandbar near his birthplace in northern India’s Assam region to grow a refuge for wildlife. Not long after, he decided to dedicate his life to this endeavor, so he moved to the site where he could work full-time creating a lush new forest ecosystem. Incredibly, the spot today hosts a sprawling 1,360 acre of jungle that Payeng planted single-handedly.

Wow. Talk about perseverence, and a love for nature. I can imagine how happy he would have been through the 30 years to see his “forest” grow. Some of us are not even successful in keeping our tulsi healthy.

(via)

From Slashdot to Washington Post

Wow. I echo Gruber in saying  “This is to be filed in the “I-never-thought-I-would-write-this-headline” category!

Rob Malda (aka CmdrTaco), the guy who started Slashdot, and who had been the editor at large for this awesome community tech site retired from Slashdot a few months ago.

In his own words –

6 months ago I walked away from what might be the greatest job ever. I had meaningful work at a place i truly called home. It was a scary decision, but the right one: 14 years had managed to grind me down.  I needed to shake things up, but thats easier typed than done with a wife and two kids.

I took the time to play with legos, go swimming and watch cartoons (mostly with my kids… mostly).  I wrote.  I read.  I took naps.  It was awesome.

But 3 months later, almost to the day, I knew it was time.  Maybe it was my wife telling me that it was time to get out of her house, or maybe it was just reading the news every day and feeling like a lazy on-looker.  But I knew it was time to start doing something again.   Life is to short to watch it go by.

And yes, true to his style, he interviewed with 35+ people in a few months ! And he thinks he was found what he is most passionate about. Community building. News.Technology. He is going to be the Chief Strategist and Editor-at-large and working with the WaPo (Washington Post) labs. He would be working with new technology in the news aggregation arena. Good luck CmdrTaco!

The men in Black (Advocates Issue in Karnataka)

As much as I do avoid writing about political issues, I could not resist penning down my current frustration at what is happening in the Karnataka at the moment.

For those who are not in the know of what happened since Friday:

  • Some lawyers attack media persons. Police disperse this issue.
  • Later friday evening, some lawyers attack local people and media folk from upper floors of the court.
  • Police bring in force to control the situation
  • Lawyers threaten not to stop if half the force is not diverted elsewhere
  • Police in an attempt to placate the situation agree and divert some of the police force away from the court premises.
  • Some lawyers take advantage (was this planned?) and set fire multiple vehicles on fire (including police vehicles). Some rooms inside the court premises also ransacked. A magistrate chased.
  • Lawyers flee by changing into plain clothes through the back entrance.

Few things irritate me about this situation. A well known saying is that – “Two people whom one should tell the truth and the whole truth are doctors and lawyers”. Such is the respect that is given to lawyers in society. They are the saviors of law. They are the ones who fight for other people’s rights. It is disgusting to see these folks pelt stones at the common man, and set fire to police vehicles etc. If they had had any sense of moral responsibility towards their profession, they would have handled this situation in a much more dignified way (whatever the original reason for the fight was! Arnt they trained in making well pointed arguments?).

I, for one, lost a lot of faith in the lawyer community after this incident. And it is going to take a while to regain it. Not that the musings of this ordinary man would matter much to them.

 

Norway runs out of Butter

I checked. This is not from the Onion, or any such parody website. This is from Reuters. Wow.

Diet craze leaves Norwegians starved of butter
Wed, Dec 07 19:24 PM GMT

By Balazs Koranyi

OSLO (Reuters) – The soaring popularity of a fat-rich fad diet has depleted stocks of butter in Norway creating a looming Christmas culinary crisis.

Norwegians have eaten up the country’s entire stockpile of butter, partly as the result of a “low-carb” diet sweeping the Nordic nation which emphasizes a higher intake of fats.

“Sales all of a sudden just soared, 20 percent in October then 30 percent in November,” said Lars Galtung, the head of communications at TINE, the country’s biggest farmer-owned cooperative.

A wet summer which reduced the quality of animal feed and cut milk output by 25 million litres had already limited supplies and the shortage has led some pundits to suggest the world’s eighth-largest oil exporter offer some of its plentiful fuel supply in exchange for butter.

“Norwegians are not afraid of natural fats, they love their butter and cream,” Galtung told Reuters.

Butter is now selling on Norway’s top auction website, with a 250-gram piece starting at around $13 (8.28 pounds), roughly four times its normal price.

Just weeks before Norwegians will be expecting to eat plenty of buttery traditional biscuits and other homemade Christmas treats made with love and the liberal inclusion of dairy products, residents of the world’s second-richest per-capita country can’t even hope for help from a friendly neighbour who is rolling in butter.

Top dairy producer Denmark lies just across a narrow sea channel, but its stores of creamy butter will be kept out of the country by the high import duties of Norway, the only Nordic nation that does not belong to the European Union.

Still, the problem has certainly provided the Danes with a good laugh over their richly buttered breakfast toast.

Morning TV show Go’ Morgen Danmark amid much hilarity offered a paltry 1,000 packets of butter on Wednesday to help ease the pain.

 [link]

Pilot for Rajdhani

Wow. Another brilliant move.

East Central Railway already saw 18 attacks in the last one year,including the derailment of 10 coaches of the Delhibound Rajdhani express,between Gaya and Mughalsarai in Bihar.This has prompted the railways to run pilot engines ahead of Rajdhani express trains.As many as eight Rajdhani trains daily pass through this stretch. [link]

So, its Ok to lose an engine driver and an engine ? Day by day, I get more and more shocked with the stupidity of government decisions that are taken in recent times. Yes, I read about the censorship demand for social networking sites as well. I dont even want to talk about it. That is just basic constitutional violation (violation of free speech).