What are Western values?

Taken from this discussion:

Western values? like supporting dictatorships in Chile, central America countries, Greece, Pakistan etc?

Western values like allowing friend countries to invade and occupy foreign countries (Turkey over Cyprus) while doing the exact opposite thing with non-friend countries?

Western values like increasing the price of imported goods from Africa in order to protect domestic production?

Western values like economically supporting all the 'orange' revolutions in former soviet union countries in order to get the geopolitical advantage?

Western values like dismantling Yugoslavia because the southern part has the largest deposits of a rare metal which USA wants for replacing enhanced uranium in its weapons?

Western values like lying about WMDs in Iraq?

Western values like taking the culture of one country and arbitrarily assign it to another (yeap, I am talking about the so called country of 'Macedonia', one of the biggest thefts of cultural identity in history) ?

Western values like giving money under the table to enemies of Chaves so as that he is overthrown, even if he is legally elected?

Western values like illegally giving money to Israel under the table, as well as advanced technology that no other one has?

Western values like don't doing anything about Israel's 200 nuclear warheads, even when they openly admit it?

Western values like privatizing everything and leaving over 60 million americans in the mercy of god, without medical insurance and health care? and with private health care companies sucking everything out of their clients?

Western values like banks increasing their profits 500% each year while the average payment of an american employee has remained almost the same in the last 30 years?

Western values like stealing ancient artifacts from all around the globe and displaying them in your museums?

Western values like changing the borders of other countries (for example in the Balkans) so as you can divide and conquer, while in Africa there are thousands of slaughtered people every day in Sudan, yet you say 'it's not your problem'??? (as Angela Merkel told us a few days ago)...

Western values like not destroying the drug factories and plantations of south America, even if you have accurately mapped all the globe with your satellites?

Western values like not doing anything for the environment because it will hurt your wallet?

What western values are you talking about? all your values were invented somewhere else, and you might not know it, but almost all your habits and things you use daily come from other countries that you bash as 'non-western'. Your clothing habbits probably come from Europe. Your food from Europe and Latin America. Your language comes from Europe. Your political system comes from Europe. Your music comes from Africa. Your religion comes from Middle East. Your sports come from Europe and the Far East. The foundations of your technology come from West Germany, where almost all top scientists came to USA before and after WWII.

Get a grip on reality. The battle between USA and Russia is far from over, because Russia got the biggest natural energy resources, and USA is scared to death about Europe depending on Russia for its energy needs. That about sums it up, really.

B-schooler chest thumping

What the Supergirl witnessed was work embedding itself into life. What is witnessed here is too many marketing case studies embedding itself into life..


To be fair, I think most B-schoolers would be guilty of this :-)

Bounds have been overstepped

Long legitimate comments on my blog posts - I love (who doesn't??)

Not so long legitimate comments - I welcome.

Long spam comments - I tolerate.

Long spam comments that sound like they come from all the way from Jerry Falwell roasting on his spit in hell - I grit my teeth and put up with it anyway (hey, what can I say - I'll sell my soul for more visitors to the blog..)

Long spam comment that sounds like it was written by a right-wing, think-of-the-children, Dubya-fellating, homophobic, ID-loving, propaganda-spewing, wannabe neo-Nazi - ouch. Damn. Fine, I'll let it be.

But the title of this post is justified when said long spam comment messes up a perfectly nice post page (with comments from a couple of girls I don't really know! woohoo!) and then adds insult to injury by bad-mouthing BOTH Apple and The Simpsons.

Do not call Homer a bad influence! Die a slow painful death!

I still wont delete the comment, though ;-)

Bwaahahahahahahaha

My Inner Hero - Wizard!




There are many types of magic, but all require a sharp mind and a cool head. There is no puzzle I can't solve, no problem I can't think my way out of. When you feel confused or uncertain, you can always rely on me to untangle the knots and put everything back in order for you.

How about you? Click here to find your own inner hero.

Ooh that Chris Rock...haha..

You know the world is going crazy
when the Best Rapper is a white guy,
the Best Golfer is a black guy;
the Tallest Guy in the NBA is Chinese,
the Swiss hold the America’s Cup,
France is accusing the USA of arrogance,
Germany doesn’t want to go to war,
and the two most powerful men in America are named Bush and Dick.

Well, That Seems Clear Enough

(Paraphrased via a Quicklink from Plastic)

Guess why the average American can't figure out the complexities of foreign policy, domestic violence or other contentious issues? Because their primary sources of news are, to put it succinctly, a bunch of numbskulls, corporate shills and just plain dumbasses. And of course, as the Hoffmanian blog says..


I'll stick to Google News, blogs and discussion forums, thankyouverymuch.

Repost - May The Force Be With You

This was done quite a while back. Reposted for the sake of garnering more eyeballs. [Thanks to AB Wan Kenabe for reminding me of this.]

Vivek and I were doing what software engineers usually do - chatting on the intranet IM service.

Now, Vivek signs off each email of his with "May the Force be with you", so we were discussing how one would use this to wish someone other than Luke Skywalker good luck.

And this is what we came up with. Some of these may not be too correct, but hey, that's the best we could do..

1. Stockbroker - May the bourse be with you
2. Golfer - May the course be with you
3. Richard Stallman - May the source be with you
4. Boatman - May the oars be with you
5. Obelix - May the boars be with you
6. Soldier/sailor returning from a long hard time looking for a good night out - May the whores be with you
7. Congenitally seasick landlubber - May the shores be with you
8. Viking lover - May the Norse be with you
9. Lion recovering from sore throat - May the roars be with you
10. Personal lawyer - May divorce be with you
11. Banker - May endorse be with you
12. Sponge - May the pores be with you
13. Quadruped - May all fours be with you
14. Marvin the Paranoid Android - May the bores be with you
15. Telegraph operator - May the Morse be with you
16. Mallu guy stranded in the desert looking for a way to escape - May the horse be with you
17. Big B/Sachin - May the crores be with you
18. Terminally lazy person - May the snores be with you
19. Housemaid - May clean floors be with you (aside: a housemaid's hesitant lover might say "I may clean floors to be with you")
20. Mafia don - May the chors be with you (can also be used above - chores)
21. Horny Peahen - May the mores be with you
22. Jim Morrison fan - May The Doors be with you
23. Democrat American population in 2000 - May the Gores be with you
24. Winnie the Pooh who's just stolen the donkey's tail because he wants it for himself - May Eeyore's be with you
25. Sutherland employee - May outsource be with you
26. Miner - May the ores be with you
27. Shopaholic - May the stores be with you
28. Selfish person - May what's yours be with you
29. Hot babe who keeps getting annoying IMs from unknown idiots wanting to be friends - May ignores be with you

Any more suggestions?

Orkut hidden SWF

For a few days, I have been noticing a tiny Flash object in every Orkut page I visit, called "datastore2.swf" (full URL - http://www.orkut.com/talk/datastore2.swf)

Every page, bottom right. And it doesn't scroll with the page. Detected, almost just like my random buddy here, with AdBlock Plus.

Poked around the HTML, which says:

<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.orkut.com/talk/datastore2.swf" name="plugin" height="100%" width="100%">

Intriguingly, it doesn't seemed to have caught the interest of the Google-baiters. Yet. A Google search for "datastore2.swf" throws up only that blog above, and the directory listing of some enterprising chap who has all the items from the Orkut front page. And an '0wn3d' graphic. Interesting aside, that was - Orkut h4x0r3d? *shakes head* MSN Live Search gives bupkes. Yahoo! Search gives that blog again, with another Portuguese (?) discussion forum. A few (three) Diggs. Some speculation that this is somehow linked to Google Talk.

No doubt this would trigger another wave of privacy concerns with Google. Shady fellows. Can't say they don't deserve it either, not giving Roofie a job properly and all that..

Getting to work

I stay in Chromepet, Chennai for the duration of my summer internship with Cognizant. (Not CTS – Cognizant it is) My office happens to be in this really far-off place called Navalur. A very commonly recurring joke is the appearance of many addresses ending in “Navalur, Chennai”. Navalur, in Chennai? Bah! :-)

In order to reach Navalur, I have to take the office bus. Every day. This is not mandatory, but the company does its best to make you believe it is, by conveniently keeping offices that are closer to Kancheepuram than Chennai. Nobody who lives in Chennai could disclaim knowledge of the Cognizant buses. The organization has so many offices in “Chennai” that it deploys a veritable Armada of buses to every conceivable corner of the city, and then some. This is ostensibly to cater to the commuting needs of the employee, but an ulterior motive does exist – ensure that the employee cannot afford to saunter into office late, or leave early. Well, at least make it decidedly inconvenient to do so.

Which is where I get to the point of this post – every time I am unable to (or prefer not to) catch the bus, I have to whip out the trust old Bajaj Discover DTSi (the 125cc variant) to get me there. With only a small hitch – getting me there involves traversing 27 km of weird roads, with confusing terrain. Yes, twenty-seven kilometres. In one direction. I must add here that I am exceedingly fortunate to be in Chromepet now, as compared to being in Kodambakkam earlier. In that case, my distance would have been closer to 40 km. Would you know it? Not being within city limits has its advantages :-)

I had always figured I could handle long distance bike rides. Hey, I did it for a year when gainfully employed with Verizon India (whose existence Verizon, Inc. will never acknowledge) – traveled 20 km at least, depending on post-work activities, in one direction. But I had failed to reconcile an important factor – boredom.

Every trip to or from Verizon had been with a Nokia 6030 in my pocket, tuned into Radio Mirchi (mostly) and earphones firmly held in place by my blue helmet (which some people take issue with!) The morning rides especially were quite the pleasure, owing to Suchi, and the more than decent breakfast that would follow in the Tidel Park Food Court. The evening/night rides were also tolerable, because of the (usually) kick-ass dinner that would have prefaced them.

In stark contrast, every trip to or from Cognizant, Navalur has been with a Nokia 6680, for which I was too cheap to buy extra storage, and too dumb to bring the earphones along. So no music. 27 km of silence. At least music-wise. Otherwise, there are always the trucks with their air-horns and other random idiots who believe the accelerator and horn are coupled devices. Thus far, I am ashamed to admit, the only fun I’ve ever had on these rides was racing with a female on a Honda Activa.

Add into all this, my paranoia about getting a flat, and you have a recipe for a thoroughly terrible ride, which I enjoy nonetheless, for it lets me use my bike, which I have foolishly brought with me all the way from Jamshedpur. And yes, I also intend to take it back. Sigh...

Spoems

As distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light,
and turn it into something cartoon-funny.
Scrawny wolves, and you,
Life, or only joy, that stands out
Grateful, I know, for just such compensations,
Dim, and die tonight?
In Florida, it's strawberry season—
Not so much of place as of renewed hope,
Onto my frozen fingers.
Hoarfrost is in his bones and on his head,
Appendices
Partly stone, partly the absence of stone,
Cascading snowflakes settle in the pines,
Everywhere, utterly.
III. Earliest Recorded Northern Explorers: The Greeks and the Vikings
XI. Franklin's Last Voyage
(Our fortitude grows dim in
XXI. Flying in the Arctic
How bittersweet it is, on winter's night,

VIII. Russia: The Great Northern Expedition
And trumpet at his lips; nor does he cast
Thinking of your abiding spirit brings
But when, on the timepieces that we call
Shadows keep piling up as surfaces
Beneath a pile of corpses, lying massed
trainer flips young alligators over on their backs,
Like some poor wounded wretch—long left for dead
Snow haze gleams like sand.
In dense bare branches, or the ubiquitous
By bloody pool—rattling, gasping his last.
And I would like
Snaps of ice cracking in the hidden air.
That patch of white at the very end of the road
Toward something that the world is pointing toward
With my foot the supple ball, for perhaps
In Winter Haven, the ballplayers are stretching
At these masses the snow hides from me.
Figures of light and dark, these two are walking

The paths of childhood.
IX. After the Great Northern Expedition
Glimmering of light:
Cascading snowflakes settle in the pines,
From there. Toward . . .
From point to point of meaning—open? closed?—
He never even dreams, being sheer snow;
And the wide arrowhead the road itself
Before those virile women!
The weight of being born into exile is lifted.
And I would like
Shadows keep piling up as surfaces
Covering the land—
And half-starved foxes shake and paw
Will sound, then the Lord's face will luminesce
Glimmering of light:
III. Earliest Recorded Northern Explorers: The Greeks and the Vikings
Nor, indeed, the bit of paint itself can know of.
And Mère Chose's square of world, even as they

All three bits of verse via spam asking me to download Adobe Photoshop CS3 for only $89.

Heh.