Categories
humour

India Parliament Tweeting Algorithm

parl_algo

(click to enlarge)

I think several news agencies are already using above said algorithm for news reporting purposes.

Categories
news

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)

Categories
news technology

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!

Categories
news Opinion

US finds mineral deposits in Afghanistan

The NewYork Times has an article which says that the US has discovered huge amounts of mineral deposits in Afghanistan. Nice try. And we all have to believe that, only now that the US found it. I am reminded of the Avatar movie. the US has (atleast till now) invaded and fought war only in countries, where it has had some amount of financial interests (the various middle east wars). It has always claimed that, the wars have been fought for installing peace in these areas. And then what? Establish American companies there and reap the financial benefits. Very ironical is the fact that, the movie Avatar also had the exact same theme – precious mineral contents. I am pretty sure that the US would have found all of this using sophisticated remote sensing satellite technologies.

An excerpt:

U.S. Discovers Nearly $1 Trillion in Afghan Mineral Deposits

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in
untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any
previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter
the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself,
according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of
iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals
like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that
are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could
eventually be transformed into one of the most important
mining centers in the world, the United States officials
believe.

Read the NYTimes article here.

Categories
news Opinion

Army Recruitment Violence

Just read this news article, about violence at an army recruitment camp in Uttar Pradesh. Brings out a few thoughts/questions:

  • The violence apparently started because the candidates thought there were some irregularities in the enrollment. Is this really happening ? The US is also fighting a similar battle. Some very startling news arising out there, on enrolment based on color.
  • Ok, say that there was some evidence for this irregularity, is arson and violence, the way it should be handled. Are these ‘so-called-candidates’ the right ones, if they react to this like this. What will they do in the army? The army is all about obeying the commanding officer, whatever. And when I say, “whatever”, I mean “whatever”. This is what I have heard. Arson, violence ..? I cannot digest this.
  • The state government issued a statement to the central government, telling them to intimate the state government, before such camps are handled. Is that the solution? In my parlance, that is called “passing on the buck/blame”.
Categories
bangalore humour news

Deccan chronicle … smrtr ? fastr ? lessr?

(pic: sans serif -> Karnataka Photo News)

Whats up with Deccan chronicle and its stinginess for words. The ads are all over Bangalore. Apparently they use lesser words and more news. And hence they are fastr to read? And you can read the paper fastr? The next thing they will be doing is to write in the new fangled SMS English (or are they already doing that ?). Imagine a serious news being written in that lingo. This is how it would look like.

AIIMS gets doc bk

New Delhi: Centr on Thu suffrd a setbk with the Suprm Crt strkng dn the AIIMS and PIMER(A)A and restrng P. Venugopal as AIIMS Drctr. 🙂

(or)

V will tame infl : PM

PM M.Singh on Thu promisd that the UPA govt led by the Cong would tame infl in coming months and roll back infl rate to reasonable levels. ;-0

Hmm. Cannot imagine reading news like that. Whatever will the austere kaapi drinking I-cannot-see-the-light-of-day-without-reading-Hindu mafia in Chennai do?

Categories
news software technology

News burst about Yahoo and Microsoft

(pic courtesy: cnet:news.com)

Everyone has heard about the proposed take over of Yahoo by Microsoft. Their repeated increase of their offer price, and Yahoo not giving in. Lots of people predicted yahoo shareholders would be upset, and newspapers reported that Yahoo stock plunged – because they did not take what seemed to be a good offer etc. But did anyone do an accurate calculation, like what Kottke did ?

On Jan 31, the day before Microsoft offered $31/share for Yahoo, YHOO was at $19.18/share (market cap: $26.4 billion) and MSFT was at $32.60/share (market cap: $303.6 billion). At the close of trading today, YHOO closed at $24.37/share (market cap: $33.5 billion) and MSFT was at $29.08/share (market cap: $270.8 billion). In other words, the Microsoft offer increased the value of Yahoo! Inc. by more than $7 billion and decreased the value of Microsoft Corporation by almost $33 billion. In still other words, in attempting to take Yahoo by force, they let an amount equal to Yahoo slip through their fingers. Why isn’t anyone writing about Yahoo’s amazing stock gains and Microsoft’s plunge?

If everyone did, the whole concept of media sensationalism would die ! (and I sure wish it did, after the unfortunate incident of me watching Headline news the other day!)